Provanzano, Carlo - The Mysteries of Mithra - Tracing Syncretistic Connections To The Ancient Near East. Ph.D. Dissertation.-California State University (2009) PDF
Provanzano, Carlo - The Mysteries of Mithra - Tracing Syncretistic Connections To The Ancient Near East. Ph.D. Dissertation.-California State University (2009) PDF
Provanzano, Carlo - The Mysteries of Mithra - Tracing Syncretistic Connections To The Ancient Near East. Ph.D. Dissertation.-California State University (2009) PDF
SYNCRETISTIC CONNECTIONS TO
A Thesis
Presented
to the Faculty of
In Partial Fulfillment
Master of Arts
in
Humanities
by
Carlo Provanzano
Fall 2009
UMI Number: 1481388
In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed,
a note will indicate the deletion.
UMT
Dissertation Publishing
UMI 1481388
Copyright 2010 by ProQuest LLC.
All rights reserved. This edition of the work is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
uest
ProQuest LLC
789 East Eisenhower Parkway
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
Copyright by
CARLO PROVANZANO
2009
service have always been and shall always be a source of strength and inspiration to me.
PREFACE
Whenever, as a child, I was taught about ancient Egypt, Alexander the Great, or
the glory of Rome, I always thrilled to know more. In my young mind I visualized great
pyramids, marching legions, and great stone temples where holy priests made offerings to
the gods. Later, still in youth, but by then developing a mind of my own, I wondered how
what I was taught in school could be true. Considering the grandeur of their monuments,
the sophistication of their societies, and the advanced state of their scientific knowledge,
how could Egypt and Sumeria have just suddenly arisen only a few thousand years before
cultures, with the most recent "discovery" being what they believe is the oldest temple so
far uncovered, dated around 10,000 BC. They find this stunning. I find it amusing. And, I
wonder if in the months and years ahead—with the climactic ravages of global warming
and seismic activity shifting sea levels and affecting land masses—far more ancient finds
However what I do believe is that long ago in ages too distant to remember, those
few elect among mankind, possessing vision and intellect far in advance of the masses,
must have seen and understood things—call them secrets of nature if you will—and felt it
crucial, even urgent, that they be preserved for future ages. This they did with
architectural monuments and symbols on stone and baked clay, as symbols can be
universally comprehended and speak what countless words cannot. Those secrets, those
Mysteries, hold the key to our future now, as mankind reaches a crucial crossroads.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE ii
DEDICATION iv
PREFACE v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vi
ABSTRACT xv
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION 1
Historical Context 1
The Mysteries 6
Statement of the Problem 7
Theoretical Bases and Organization 8
Methodology 9
Limitations of the Study 11
Definition of Terms 13
Overview 19
3. SCHOLARLY CONTENTIONS 29
vi
CHAPTER PAGE
Recommendations 107
vu
LIST OF FIGURES
PAGE
14. Scene from Taq-e-Bostan High Relief Sculpture, the Tree of Life 15
24. Mithra and Sol Sitting over a Bull While Being Passed a Drink 23
46. Mary Queen of the World with Rays and Crescent Moon 51
59. Rose Croix Officer in Red Cap and Red and White Robes 55
71. Cybele, Great Mother Goddess of Anatolia and Magna Mater of Rome 61
xi
PAGE
92. Goddess Anahita and Sun-God Mithra Rising from the Sun-Lion 76
xii
PAGE
107. Statuette of Celestial Bull with Body Adorned with Star-Shaped Rosettes 87
120. Nergal, God of the Underworld, Chaldean Bronze Plaque (back view) 99
121. Nergal, God of the Underworld, Chaldean Bronze Plaque (front view) 99
xiv
ABSTRACT
Franz Cumont in the first year of the 20th century, is currently a battlefield of contention
among scholars, especially concerning the origins and meaning of the Roman Cult of
Mithra. The author herein argues that Roman Mithraism was not a completely newly
fabricated cult but merely another manifestation of the same Mysteries descended from
the ancient Near East and Egypt. The methodology used applies a syncretistic
the astral-cosmogonical beliefs, relics, and rituals from the ancient Near East and Egypt
over a period of more than four thousand years. The discourse includes ancillary
INTRODUCTION
Historical Context
There is a revolution going on in the scholarly world that is changing many time-
honored views about history and the history of religion. The waves of the ocean of time
are washing away many long-held beliefs, and a new paradigm of ancient history and the
development of religions is rapidly taking shape. It was long believed in modern times
that all true philosophy originated with the Greeks. In the nineteenth century, noted
scholars like Hegel and Zeller scorned the idea that sublime Greek philosophy could have
Anglocentrism made serious consideration of such ideas out of the question, as non-
Dates for the earliest civilizations and cultures keep getting pushed back farther
and farther. Sumerian cities of the fourth millennium BC, once considered the oldest,
have been superseded by Catal Huyiik in Turkey and Jericho in Palestine, preceding them
by at least three thousand years (Fairbairn 202; Baiter 1). Evidence of ritual sacrifice has
been found at sites 8,500 years old (Rodrigue 987). Nevali Cori (Turkey) had
monumental temple architecture dating back at least 10,000 years, but archaeologists now
claim 12,000-year-old Gobekli Tepe as the most ancient (see Figures 1-4) (Scham 23-24).
It was believed that only sedentary agriculturalists could have produced the earliest
hunters with no domesticated animals " . . . has turned this theory on its head" (26).
Figs. 1., 2., and 3. Gobekli Tepe, reliefs depicting a lion; scorpion Fig. 4. Nevali Cori head with snake
and vultures; and a bull, c. 10,000 BC, from Andrew Curry, "The crawling up the back, c. 8000 BC,
World's First Temple?" Smithsonian Magazine Nov. 2008: 54-60, Prehistoric Turkey. 8 Dec. 2008
gobekli-tepe.html>. turkeynevah.html>.
Later megalithic temples with a similar plan of construction have been found as
far away as the Euphrates (Scham 27). An archaeologist at the Gobekli site, recalling
cultic animal sculptures found in Syria, said "You can really see it's the same culture. All
the most important symbols are the same" (Curry 60). Take note of the "pollen buckets"
in Figure 2 surrounded by bees and ants, as they will appear again in the iconography of
the historic Near East discussed in Chapter Five. The sculpture of "a bare human head
with a snake crawling up the back of it" (see Figure 4) (Scham 25), found at both Gobekli
Tepe and Nevali Cori (separated by two millennia), is significant in later Egyptian, Near
is now believed these areas had a dense population in Mesolithic times and earlier.
provide the reason for much lower populations in the later Neolithic. Sea level rise of 130
m since 13,000 BC, 50 m during the Mesolithic (10,000-7000 BC), and 40 m during the
Neolithic settlements of the Aegean area are now embedded under more or less deep
related in the Epic ofGilgamesh (Kramer 97; Lambert 130) and copied (with alterations)
anthropologists, and archaeologists from the United States and Europe reported evidence
"southeastern Europe, Anatolia, Cyprus, and the Near East" in 6,200 BC, and "all of
Palestine and the Jordan Valley... suddenly abandoned" about 1250 years earlier
In the mythology of mankind one reads of great giants who do battle, feathered
serpents with wings, dazzling antediluvian cities, and a time in the distant past when gods
and demi-gods with superhuman abilities ruled over men. In the iconography and textual
remains of the Mysteries strange and fantastic images portray multi-form deities, speak of
ascending "celestial spheres," and tell of secret formulas whereby the soul of mortal man
may break the bounds of flesh and take flight, "seeing" in another "realm" (Meyer 214).
Witnessing the massive quarried and cut stones—the one shown below weighing
985 tons—matching those in the stone platform under the great Temple of Jupiter at
Baalbek, one wonders at the advanced skills of the ancients, as the pediment is believed
to have been in place long before the Roman temple was built. Some scholars think the
Ptolemys had designated Baalbek as Heliopolis (City of the Sun), and local Arab legends
place the origin of the megaliths before the Flood (Mruzek, Jupiter's). Two men standing
on the ruins in each of the photographs below allow size comparisons (see Figures 5 and
6). In later chapters it shall be seen with whom Hermes/Mercury was equated. And, why
would the Romans choose to build such a monument to the gods at this remote spot?
Fig. 5. Cut But Unused Megalith, Baalbek, Lebanon, at Fig. 6. Temple of Jupiter, Baalbek, Lebanon, built
an ancient quarry, age unknown, a perfect match to upon a more ancient pediment, begun by Julius
the stones in the pediment under the Temple of Caesar in 15 BC and finished in Nero's reign
Jupiter, together called trilithon, 6 Feb. 2009 <http:// (AD 54-68), from Jiri Mruzek, "Jupiter's Temple,
www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_baalbek_2.htm>.
5
The recent findings at Gobekli Tepe seem to indicate that man's ritualistic or
When this is coupled with the ongoing evidence being presented by geologists and
region in that time period, could it be possible that many more such sites are yet to be
discovered, buried under many feet of earth? Satellite imagery was used recently to
identify another 450 undiscovered sites in the Afghan wilderness, some of which may be
many millennia old. According to Zahi Hawass, head of the Egyptian Supreme Council
of Antiquities, seventy percent of the relics of Egypt still lie buried under the sand.
No longer can we look at each discovery from the Mediterranean to India or even
Mediterranean was very much within the spheres of influence of the great cultures of
ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Iran (Burkert, Babylon), and it is now accepted that
most of Europe's, Iran's, and half of India's languages evolved from a single original
from past times, but how far back they go has been a matter of contention. Zarathustra,
father of Zoroastrianism, who shall be dealt with in more depth in later chapters, is
variously dated from 6000 BC to the mid-sixth century BC. The oldest dates are based
upon information from Aristotle, Eudoxus, and Hermippus as quoted in later Greco-
Roman writers (Churchward 14; Jackson 15; Doresse 10, 53). He is also generally
considered to be the first of the prophets (Kriwaczek 209); nevertheless, few would say
The Mysteries
The subject of the Mysteries is quite esoteric, so defining the term proves helpful.
In the days of Classical Greece the polis (city state) was the primary political unit and the
Olympian pantheon of gods was publicly worshipped by all good citizens. Later, after
Alexander's conquests, in the period called "Hellenistic," doubts were cast upon the
Olympian deities of the polis as the world became cosmopolitan. Deities from Anatolia,
Asia, Africa, and India became familiar in the Greek world. With the rise of philosophy
the motives of the Olympian gods were questioned, and some began doubting their very
existence (Meyer 2; Vernant, Origins 54-59; Case 58-59). Western man had become
dissatisfied with the traditional exoteric worship and now sought deeper meaning. The
Mysteries filled this need. This, so far, is what the consensus believes as to when the
Simply put, "the mysteries were secret religious groups composed of individuals
who decided, through personal choice, to be initiated into the profound realities of one or
another deity" (Meyer 4). The word mystery (mysterion in Greek) refers to the closing of
the lips or eyes. Contrary to the very public worship of the gods of the polis, the
Mysteries were private convocations. The mystai (initiates) were held to a vow of silence
and forbidden to reveal cultic secrets to outsiders (Meyer 4; Vernant, Origins 58-59).
Mystery cults existed throughout the Roman Empire until the rise and eventual
take-over by Christianity, most scholars believing them extant from the seventh century
7
BC to the fourth century AD (Claussl4), although there is evidence of extreme antiquity,
as in the Eleusinian mysteries, going back at least to the days of Mycenae and Troy (1200
BC) (Mylonas 135). There was one mystery cult that was particularly popular with the
Roman military forces, and that was the Cult of Mithra, the primary focus of this study.
The famous philologist, Franz Cumont, introduced the study of Mithraism to the
academic world at the beginning of twentieth century. He had spent long years in
research and archaeological excavations in Europe and the Near East prior to the
publication of his magisterial work, Textes et monuments figures relatifs aux mys teres de
Mithra, with 931 pages and 507 illustrations. In 1900 he published The Mysteries of
Mithra as a summary of his conclusions based on the larger work (Cumont, Mysteries
viii). Most later studies and criticisms start with Cumont, as his influence in the academic
world of his day was considerable and still holds many in its thrall (Lincoln 204-05).
Cumont held that the Roman Cult of Mithra was "a branch from the ancient
Mazdean trunk . . . " {Mysteries vi), viewing it as descended from the older Iranian
religion of Zoroastrianism. He explained how he believed it evolved over time from its
roots in Iran to take on a "seductive Hellenic form more palatable to the West" (14-15).
Mithraic cult worship involved a ubiquitous icon referred to as the tauroctony, a relief
sculpture or sculpture-in-the-round that could include various symbols and gods, but most
importantly the god Mithra in a Phrygian cap slaying a bull (Nabarz 18-21). All this
seems rather straightforward but is hardly so, as only scanty textual evidence exists from
the Roman cult, and little or no explanations of the ritual practiced in the mithrae
8
(Mithraic temples) survive. Extensive iconographic remains spread across Europe and the
Near East consist mostly of cultic relief sculptures. Numerous temple ruins contain
scholars over the meaning of the iconography, the exact form or interpretation of rituals,
and the very origin of Roman Mithraism. These controversies are addressed at length in
Chapter Three. Scholars also argue over the meaning of the Lion-Headed God
{leontocephalous) in the Mithra cult. This paper offers some exciting new information on
that subject. Additionally, two other ancillary topics are argued. The first is the hotly
debated connection between Mithraism and Christianity. The second is the ancient Sun-
god-Moon-god alternating dominance, as this has direct bearing on the Mithraic cult and
The research presented herein includes the opinions and findings of most major
Mithraic scholars. The dominant names in the field are of course Franz Cumont (the
founder of Mithraic studies), Roger Beck, Manfred Clauss, and David Ulansey. The
valuable insights of Dr. Payam Nabarz—a Persian-born Sufi, practicing occultist, and
world's foremost expert in ancient religions. His in-depth analyses of many issues
In brief, it can be stated that Cumont saw the cult as an invasion of Iranian
Mazdaism disguised in Western garb. Beck finds its origins in Commagene in the first
9
century AD and even narrows it down to the royal court and one astrologer named
Iran. Ulansey sees the tauroctony as portraying a "salvific act" and views the whole scene
when the Age of Taurus began. He places the founding of the cult in Tarsus in the first
century BC and suggests one Posidonius as responsible for its genesis. Lastly, Clauss
spurns the views of the other major scholars, insists Roman Mithraism began in the city
of Rome itself or in its port of Ostia, and claims that it "cannot be shown to have
developed from Persian religious ideas" (7). In addition, most of the more recent
scholarly articles by various other authors reject the notion that the Roman cult had its
origins in Iran and argue for a disconnection with the Near East entirely. The current
consensus is running against many of the views Cumont initially put forth (xix-xxi).
Methodology
This study, after digesting all the rest, moves on to present a "new" paradigm: The
Mystery Cult of Mithra was one of several interrelated initiatic orders that flourished in
the time of Roman rule (and well before) and cannot be taken as an isolated and
Mysteries, demonstrates continuity with the most ancient cults of Mesopotamia and
epigraphical, textual, and ritualistic comparisons. The Roman cult was no new
difference (if any) between (1) purposeful borrowing, (2) unconscious or conscious
influence, (3) assimilation, (4) continuity, and (5) common origin. This, at first glance,
would seem to impede the research involving questions of origin or development, but,
capable of decipherment. The difficulties are in the details. As with any religion or cult,
the embellishments added by inheriting cultures through the years and the aesthetic
underlying basics. When the underlying basics are studied in the context of a broader
time period (rather than just the Roman) and a broader geographical area (rather than just
Extremely helpful in formulating this broader and more holistic approach was the
research of Jean Pierre Vernant and Walter Burkert, both of whom have presented
and religions from the very ancient Near East and Egypt to Greco-Roman times.
Also helpful were the vast research efforts and scholarly monographs of such luminaries
as Helena Blavatsky, Charles Leadbeater, Max Heindel, and others whose works
presented not only prestigious historical evidence but the viewpoints of actual initiates
themselves. A study of modern initiatic and religious ritual, cosmogonical beliefs, and art
forms (see Figures 7 and 8) helped elucidate some of what other modern Mithraic
Fig. 7. Egyptian Lodge Room. Grand Lodge Fig. 8. The Papacy and the World, allegorical
of Pennsylvania, photo by Kimberely, painting of Pope Leo XIII (r. 1878-1903) seated
Phoenix Masonry, Inc. 9 Jan. 2009 on the throne of Saint Peter, Lateran Palace,
2009 <http://images.google.com>.
The available scholarly articles and books on Roman Mithraism number into the
the author of this study could not possibly review them all. Yet, enough were covered to
give a healthy representative sampling, indeed the major thrust, of the cutting edge
Syncretism is the conflation of different gods and goddesses and ritual practices
over time, geographical areas, and through cultures. The syncretistic approach that was
taken, with so many cultic systems being examined, presented a challenge. Thankfully a
plethora of other scholars (see bibliography) have provided the philological and
points and relevant art that could be presented in defense of the arguments had to be
pared down to a select few representative of the whole (i.e. the mithraeum in Figures 9
and 10, of which there are many dozens). Considering the careful choice of quality
sources and substantive back-ups to pin down the assertions made it is hoped that the
reader will find the subject clarified and the presentation satisfying, despite its brevity.
"knowledge." Any study is delimited by its inability to grasp fully or imagine completely,
Figs. 9. and 10. Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres (Mitreo delle Sette Sfere) in Ostia Antica (Rome), the
restoration of the shrine and its vestibule (pronaos) by A. Decimus Decimianus, dedication of the altar to
Sol Mithras, bull's tail ends in grains of wheat, scorpion pinches testicles, on the vertical side of benches
are mosaic depictions of the planets, their positions referencing the spring equinox of 21 March in AD 172,
gods Jupiter, Mercury, Luna (as Diana), Saturn, Venus, and Mars depicted in mosaics (on the vertical side
of the benches), as are all the signs of the zodiac (on the horizontal side of the ledge in front of the
There are alternative spellings of some frequently used terms in this study and
alternative usages of others, so some explanations are in order here. The Roman form of
the god was Mithras, the Iranian form was Mithra, and the Indo-Aryan form was Mitra
(later conflated as Mitra-Varuna). In this study the name of the god shall be rendered as
Mithra in all instances excepting direct quotations where it might be spelled otherwise.
Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd) is the supreme good god (and Sun-god) in Zoroastrianism.
Angra Mainyu or Ahriman is the evil god in Iranian Zoroastrianism who opposes Ahura.
Behistun is the rock monument built by Darius I, the Great (521-486 BC), known as the
Figs. 11. and 12. Behistun Rock monument of Darius 1 the Great (521-486 BC), ruler of the Achaemenid
Empire, high-reliefs and inscriptions, measuring 15 m high, 25 m wide, and carved 100 m up a cliff on an
ancient road connecting the capitals of Babylon and Ecbatana, called the Rosetta Stone of Iran, has the
inscriptions repeated three times in three languages: Aryan (Old Persian), Elamite (the administrative
language of the Achaemenid Empire), and Akkadian (Babylonian), with ten figures representing conquered
peoples, all text illegible from ground level, and has the Sun-god, Ahura Mazda, hovering over the scene,
Genetor luminis is Latin for one of the titles of Mithra, meaning "new begetter of light."
The word "god" shall be rendered with a lower case g, whether referring to the ancient
capital G only if referring to the Ineffable One. Exceptions of course will be usages
Hierophant (hierophantes), literally "the one who shows sacred things," refers to the
Mehr is the modern form of Mithra and in Farsi means "love," "sun," and "friend."
Mithraeum is a temple of the cult. The plural is variously spelled as mithraeums, mithrai,
or mithrae, but herein shall be rendered always as mithrae, not capitalized unless used
Mystae and mystai are the singular and plural for "initiate," not capitalized. Mystery
{mysterion in Greek) literally means "the closing of the lips or eyes," and is the name by
which the cultic secret systems are designated. The term "Mysteries" will always be
Neophyte is one newly initiated into the Mysteries and a candidate for further initiation.
Taq-e-Bostan is the relief sculpture depicting the investiture of Sasanid monarch Ardashir
II (AD 379-383) featuring Ahura Mazda and Mithra (see Figures 13 and 15).
Tauroctony refers to the ubiquitous iconography of the bull slaying by the god Mithra.
15
Tree of Life is the ubiquitous Near Eastern symbol which modern initiates believe
Figs. 13., 14., and 15. Scenes from Taq-e-Bostan high-relief sculpture, Kermanshah, Iran, depicting (left to
right) the royal investiture of Sasanid monarch Ardashir II (AD 379-383), flanked by Mithra on his right
and sun-god Ahura Mazda on his left, the Tree of Life, and a depiction of the royal investiture of Khosro II
(AD 591-628) flanked by Sun-goddess Anahita on his right and Ahura Mazda on his left, though some
scholars believe the figure to the king's left is Mobed-e-Mobedan, the Zoroastrian high priest at the time.
Khosro wears the sun and moon symbols on his head, Feb. 21, 2009
Yazatas are the Immortals that accompany Ahura Mazda (in the Iranian religion).
Utu is the Sumerian name of the same Sun-god known in Akkadian as Sama or Shamash.
The previous entry concludes the definition of terms. A map of the ancient Near
East will prove helpful in locating some of the various kingdoms and peoples referred to
in the text, and a basic chronology of historical periods and dynasties (see below) will
prove invaluable as well. The reader can clearly see the proximity of the ancient Near
Eastern kingdoms to each other and to Mycenaean Greece (see Figure 16), which had
intimate relations with the Hittites and Assyrians as will be shown in later chapters.
16
Kaska'"
fiathisass
>K~ ^ / , ^ ^ , ; T . / V - , „
* ^ Ihebes
PyloSf
Knossos
/ *Qadesh \
GUM.
Libyans - ,.
' \\
Memphis! m
>°P°l^ +Anshan
Hemcleopoln J
Hennopohsi w
mm\>mmmms
Fig. 16. "Near East in 1450 BC", map, University of Michigan, Ian Mladiov's Resources. 7 Feb 2009
<http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/mladjov/maps>.
The chronology below was taken largely from G. Maspero (see works cited section).
The previous illustrations of Behistun and Taq-e-Bostan (Figures 13-15), the images of
Nimrud Dag (see Figures 17 and 18 below) built by the Commagenian ruler Antiochus I,
and the bust of the Sun-god Utu/Shamash (see Figure 19) will assist the reader in
Figs. 17. and 18. Nimrud Dag monument of Antiochus I of Commagene, Fig. 19. Bust of Utu/Shamash
(r.70-38 BC), near Adiyaman, Turkey, has statues 8 to 9 m high, with the Sun-god of Sumeria, wear-
two lions, two eagles, and various Greek, Armenian, and Persian gods, ing the horned crown of the
including Ahura Mazda and Mithra-Apollo-Helios, all originally seated gods, 17 Feb. 2009 <http://
but now with their heads off and scattered over the site. Center figure www. flickr.com/photos/
shows Antiochus I shaking hands with the Sun-god Mithra. Photos by 89756796ON00/214768876>.
west6_mithri.jpg7>.
The time span between the oldest (Behistun) and the latest (Taq-e-Bostan) is over
one thousand years. Some have compared the multi-tiered horned crown worn by Sun-
god Utu/Shamash to the papal tiara. These portrayals will serve to "paint a picture" of
some of the terms defined in this section. The illustration below (see Figure 20) shows
what scholars refer to as the prehistoric Mother-Goddess. Lions rest on each side of her
and remain as her symbol as she reappears throughout this discourse under different
names. The 32,000-year-old statue on the right (see Figure 21) is the oldest known
zoomorphic sculpture in the world, and scholars debate whether it is a male, female,
human or god (Filingeri 65). Curiously, it has seven diagonal marks on its left arm.
18
Fig. 20. Mother-Goddess Figure Enthroned, Fig. 21. Lion-Man, also called Lowenfrau (Lion-
with two lions, from Catal Hiiytik, c. 7250- Lady), 30,000 BC, found in a cave named Stadel-
6700 BC, Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Hohleim, Hohlenstein, Germany, carved from
Ankara, Turkey, from "Art of the Neolothic mammoth ivory and among several found in
Era in Europe," 8 Jan. 2009 <http:// Paleolithic cave sites, has seven parallel horizontal
www.accd.edu/.. ./arts 13 03/Neolith 1 .htm>. gouges on the left arm, now in Ulmer Museum,
absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Lion_man>.
19
CHAPTER 2
Macrobius
Overview
The Mysteries of Mithra had swept across the Roman world in the first centuries
after Christ, the exact date of their origin within the Latinized realm still under debate. By
the late fourth century the cult had virtually disappeared, as Christian fanatics destroyed
Mithraic temples, and many devotees converted to Christianity. Initiates of this strange
"Oriental" deity left behind few traces of ritual and no real explanations of their beliefs.
As a mystery religion, its mystai were sworn to secrecy and did not divulge their cultic
knowledge to outsiders. But they did leave behind numerous relief sculptures, many of
which are well preserved because their temples were to emulate caves and were thus
subterranean constructions (see Figure 23) (Nabarz 8-9, Mac Mullen 122; Meyer 199).
The principal iconographic item, as related earlier, was the tauroctony (see Figure
22), the depiction of the god Mithra slaying the bull, accompanied by various other
symbols (Nabarz 20). Many of the contentions of modern scholars revolve around the
Fig. 22. Sculpture of the tauroctony, now in the British Fig. 23. Mithraeum in Ostia Antica (Rome),
Museum, from "Mithras Sol Invictus: An Initiate's from "Mithras Sol Invictus: An Initiate's Guide,"
Guide," The Roman Military Research Society. The Roman Military Research Society, 7 Jan
www.romanarmy.net/mithras.html>. mithras.html>.
In Roman Mithraism the members of each congregation met in mithrae that were
usually underground, as the temple was to represent a cave—the cave in turn representing
the cosmos (Clauss 51). The vault could be adorned with painted stars with glass at the
centers to sparkle with light (MacMullen 125). The initiates underwent a form of baptism
with water, had to pass through various ordeals called the "twelve Tortures" and were
sealed on their foreheads (Meyer 199; Blavatsky, Isis 2: 351). The candidate who passed
all the tests was given "a small round cake or wafer of unleavened bread...." One of the
symbolic referents of this wafer was the solar disk, and it was referred to as the "manna"
or heavenly bread, with figures etched upon it (Blavatsky, Isis 2:351). The Christian
writer, Justin Martyr, relates that the initiates also consumed a holy meal together of
21
bread and wine or water mixed with wine while uttering a formula. The writings of the
Platonist Celsus suggest, according to some, that the eventual goal was a "new life" for
the initiate, with the ascent of his soul to the divine realm (Meyer 200).
more than seven terms for degrees. Individual congregations may have had eight or only
two or three (MacMullen 234). The seven, typically named, are as follows: Corax
(raven), under Mercury's rule, was symbolic of the death of the neophyte. Nymphus
(male bride) was the next degree, under the tutelage of Venus. It has a second meaning of
"bee chrysalis." The neophyte remained celibate during this stage and became the bride
(lover) of Mithra. Miles (soldier) was the third degree and under the domination of Mars.
The neophyte knelt naked, with hands tied and blindfolded, as a crown was offered to
him on the end of a sword. After being crowned he removed it from his head and placed
it upon his shoulder, declaring that Mithra was his only crown (Nabarz 34). Cumont
believed part of the Miles initiation was a branding or tattooing on the forehead. Scholars
speculate that it may have been an equal-armed cross Sun symbol (Nabarz 35; Cumont,
Mysteries 157).
Leo (lion) was the fourth degree, whose ruler was Jupiter. It was the first senior
degree and involved a "washing" of the hands and anointing of the tongue with honey.
Porphyry related that the initiates of Leo were "exhorted to keep them [their hands] pure
from everything distressing, harmful, and loathsome... .They use honey as well to purify
22
the tongue from all guilt." Like the Ravens the Lions wore animal masks, and an
inscription at the Santa Prisca Mithraeum indicates their duty to tend the sacred fire:
"Receive the incense-burners, Father, receive the Lions, Holy One, through whom we
The fifth degree was Perses (Persian), ruled by the Moon. The harpe (curved
sword) that Perseus used to slay the Gorgon was one emblem of the degree. Again, honey
was used to purify the initiate. As an interesting aside, in ancient Iran honey was believed
to come from the Moon, hence the expression "honey-moon" for the period of one month
(moon) after marriage. Love and fertility, which came from the Moon, would then
Heliodromus (Sun Runner) was sixth and under the influence of the Sun. The
symbols of the degree were the torch and a seven-rayed crown with whip (typically
possessions of the Sun-god) (Clauss 137). The Sun Runners represented the Sun at the
ritual banquets and dressed in red, the color of the Sun, fire, and blood (Nabarz 37).
Finally, the highest degree was the Pater (Father). He was under the tutelage of
Saturn and was the representative of Mithra on earth. He was the teacher of the others
(Nabarz 37) and presided over the pater sacrorum (sacred ceremonies). Over all was the
Pater Patrum (Father of Fathers), who held the post until death as grand master of the
The ubiquitous relief of the tauroctony, depicting Mithra slaying the bull, has
been found from Britain to the Euphrates, spanning a period of about 300 years of Roman
23
rule (Clauss 16). Often included on reliefs of the tauroctony are images of twins, called
the dadophori, dressed like Mithra and in a sense creating a triple Mithra (see Figure 24).
They bear the names Cauti (or Cautes) and Cautopati (or Cautopates). They each bear a
torch, but one holds it up, and the other holds it down (Cumont, Mysteries 129). The most
mysterious figure in the Roman iconography was the leontocephalous (lion-headed god),
of whom more will be said later (Ulansey, Origins 118; Cumont, Mysteries 105).
Various Olympian gods sometimes appear on the chief icon as well, along with
images of a dog, a snake, a raven, a lion, Helios the Sun-god, Selene the Moon-goddess,
and sometimes a krater (cup) (see Figures 25 and 26). The famous Borghesi bas-relief
now housed in the Louvre (originally from the Capitol mithraeum) has nearly all these
(Cumont, Mysteries 21, 117). Sometimes three sprouts of wheat issue from the wound of
r T
, t t
Aiifiii i i irnwinH
Fig. 24. Mithra and Sol sitting Fig. 25. Tauroctony, Fiano Romano Fig. 26. Cult relief within the
over a bull while being passed (near Rome), from Manfred Clauss, zodiacal circle, Walbrook,
a drink, Musee de Louvre, Paris; The Roman Cult of Mithras: The London, from Manfred Clauss,
rpt. in Payam Nabarz, The God and His Mysteries (New York: The Roman Cult of Mithras:
Mysteries of Mithras: The Pagan Routledge, 2001) 148. The God and His Mysteries
pictures Mithra and Helios having a banquet, sometimes on the bull carcass or on its hide
The icon called the "rock-born Mithra" is a portrayal of the god emerging as
either a child or an adult from solid rock (Cumont, Mysteries 130-31; Clauss
66-67,129). A serpent typically entwines the rock below the god, and on some images
Mithra is encircled by a zodiacal ring. The tauroctony can also be circled with a zodiacal
ring, as is the one from Walbrook, London (Ulansey 122; Clauss 68-69, 71, 89).
soldiers, captains, or even slaves who paid for and commissioned cultic relief sculptures
such as the tauroctony or an altar. As an example, one reads: D(eo) 0(mnipotenti) S(oli)
Invi(cto), Deo Genitori, r(upe) n(ato) "To the almighty God Sun invincible, generative
god, born from the rock" (Clauss 62). Such votive inscriptions number into the hundreds.
inscription in the mithraeum beneath the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome that suggests
the initiate is renatum (reborn) and creatum (created or re-created), which in line fourteen
says "And you saved us after having shed the eternal blood." Line 12 makes reference to
"the ram," the significance of which will be taken up later (Meyer 206-07).
An important Mithraic celebration was the ritual meal, which has been compared
to the Christian Eucharist. Bread and wine were consumed in the mithraeum lectisternia
(Clauss 108-09; Nabarz 53). This position for all, rather than sillisternia (seated) for the
25
lower-born, as in everyday meals, proved the brotherhood and equality of all the initiates
regardless of whether they were slaves or generals (Nabarz 53). The Sun-god Helios is
also portrayed in some reliefs banqueting with Mithra. In the mithrae the Pater
represented Mithra and the Heliodromus represented the Sun, both of whom sat with the
other initiates at the sacred meal (27). The sixteenth day of every month was celebrated
as the day sacred to the god, as it is in the middle, and he was a divine mediator. Sunday
was a holy day. The birth of Mithra as Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun) was celebrated on
December 25th (Cumont, Mysteries 128,167). Dramatic initiation rituals enacted in the
subterranean vaults, which included lighting effects, noises, blindfolds, swords, masks,
and naked men, were designed to "amaze and terrify" (MacMullen 125-26).
Textual Remains
References are made to the Cult of Mithra by a number of Classical authors and
early Church fathers. The third-century Neo-Platonist, Porphyry, for example, wrote:
"The equinoctial region they assigned to Mithras as an appropriate seat. And for this
reason he bears the sword of Aries, the sign of Mars; he also rides a bull, Taurus being
assigned to Venus. As creator and lord of genesis, Mithras is placed in the region of the
celestial equator with the north to his right and the south to his left" (qtd. in Ulansey,
Origins 17-18). Writing in the same century as Porphyry, Church father Origen, quoting
Celsus, wrote:
and by the mystery of Mithras which is of Persian origin. For in the latter
there is a symbol of the two orbits in heaven, the one being that of the
26
fixed stars and the other that assigned to the planets, and of the soul's
passage through these. The symbol is this. There is a ladder with seven
gates and at its top an eighth gate. (qtd. in Ulansey, Origins 18)
David Ulansey (and widely published in other sources on the Mysteries of Mithra) has an
initiate peering beyond the known physical universe and into the cosmos beyond (see
Figure 29). Freemasonry and other initiatic orders also make reference to the "Occult
Sun" behind the physical Sun and ladders to the "eighth gate" in various forms of
mystical art, as in the allegorical painting in Figure 27 and the solar lion door knocker in
Figure 28 below. The polished and unpolished ashlars in Figure 27 would have no
meaning to one unfamiliar with Masonic symbology, yet have immense meaning to the
Fig. 27. Temple of the soul, Fig. 28. Solar lion door knocker, Fig. 29. Beyond the heavens, an
Masonic art, ed. Greg Stewart, House of the Temple, Supreme allegorical painting, from
30 April 2008 <http:// Grand Lodge AASR, 7 Feb.2009 Mithraism ed. David Ulansey, 17
gallery>. davidu/mithras.html>.
27
Plutarch wrote that the cult of Mithra came to the West when the Roman general
Pompey encountered Cilician pirates in 67 BC. He said the pirates "offered strange rites
of their own at Olympus, and celebrated there certain secret rites, among which those of
Mithras continue to the present time, having been first instituted by them" (qtd. in
Ulansey, Origins 40; Meyer 204-05). Other ancient writers, such as Tertullian and
Firmicus Maternus, commented on the Mithra Cult, but the above quotes were chosen as
Most important among the few extant texts is the so-called Mithras Liturgy,
which occupies lines 475-834 of the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris (Meyer 211). The
Mithras Liturgy has two sections, the first a liturgical mystery for the ascent of the soul
and the other instructing initiates how to use the liturgy. There are seven stages of ascent.
At the highest stage the initiate comes to meet the highest god, who appears like Mithra.
(immortalization) (212). It is interesting that the only known textual rendering of the
Mithraic ritual is part of a document written in Greek and part of an Egyptian prayer-text.
The greatest evidence for the cult in Egypt was a mithraeum in Alexandria. Voces
mysticae (mystical vowel sounds) were used in the liturgy, and scholars believe these
This concludes the exposition of the cult in its Romanized form. As this study is
of limited length the discussions about the more mystical aspects of the Mysteries will be
held to a minimum. All of the Mysteries had meaning on three levels: the mythical, the
28
allegorical, and the metaphysical. The mythos (myth) involved the telling of the hieros
logos (sacred tale) (Burkert, Ancient 70), in this case visually portrayed by the
tauroctony. Beginning in Hellenistic times allegory was typically termed "mystic" and
dealt more with nature than with the gods, as Cicero stated in his De nature deorum
(Burkert, Ancient 79). As for the deepest metaphysical meaning, that shall be left for a
later time, as herein the more exoteric aspects of the Cult of Mithra relating to world
major concern.
29
CHAPTER 3
SCHOLARLY CONTENTIONS
religious inquiry at the beginning of the twentieth century (Burkert, Ancient 1). Since
then many scholars have contested his theories, some offering new interpretations and
some building upon what he had presented. The following subsections will present the
primary and often opposing views of the main scholarly contenders concerning the most
important elements of Mithraic iconography and interpretations, and these bear upon the
Cumont's basic argument was twofold: (1) that Roman Mithraism was an
and, (2) that the Cult of Mithra was locked in a life and death struggle with Christianity
for domination of the minds and hearts of the people and rulers of the Roman Empire.
Cumont was a prince, of sorts, in the intellectual world of academia, author of a twelve-
30
volume catalog of Greek astrological manuscripts and two books on Greco-Roman
astrology and Egyptian astrology, and chair of the International Congress of the History
Cumont held a definite prejudice against all things Iranian, and in addressing the
delegates of the 1947 Congress (in absentia) spoke of the eminent role of Rome, "the
Eternal City who [sic], after sending the world Latin-Hellenic civilization, became
Christian [and] spread in Europe this religion which is ours" (De Ruyt 211-22). The elite
of Europe in the nineteenth century saw other races as "inferior" and even "degenerate"
(Winlow 135-37) and their European culture and society as superior (Hadfield 209-20);
so, it is not surprising that the prince of European academia, Franz Cumont—privileged
and pedigreed, Catholic and living in Rome and Paris, the greatest Catholic humanist
capitals of the time (de Ruyt)—might grow to resent any "incursion" onto European soil
by a "barbaric" (to use his own words) Iranian cult, viewing it with abhorrence.
Obviously such thinking could not help but color his views on anything originating in the
"barbaric" Orient (i.e. Iran), and he reveled in what he considered the "victory" of the
Having stated the basic tenets of the ancient Mazdean (Zoroastrian) faith, Cumont
( Mysteries 112-18) went on to state his belief that under the influence of Chaldean astral-
cosmogony, the Aryan (Iranian) gods came to be identified with the planets, and each
deity then assumed a double meaning as the Semitic system was superimposed upon the
ancient Aryan. Each planet presided over a day of the week; thus the number seven took
on special significance (120). It was mentioned earlier as the number of degrees in the
3
later Roman Mithraic system. Later, as the thesis of this study is unfolded, the
significance of this will become more clear, but for now, to summarize Cumont's view,
he held that the Roman initiates passed through the seven degrees in a celestial ascent to
perfect wisdom and purity in the final and eighth sphere (145,154).
In the earliest Mazdaism Mithra was a hero battling the forces of darkness and
had become the center of many legends in the Indo-Aryan world. He thus occupied a
middle ground between Heaven and Hell—the middle day of each month, the sixteenth,
was consecrated to him—and, after the Chaldean infusion, he was identified with
intermediary between mankind and the unapproachable high gods, and later Mithra
assumed that role, eventually becoming Sol Invictus (see Figures 30-32 below).
Fig. 30. Mithra/Helios, relief Fig. 31. Shamash or Sol Fig. 32. Sol Invictus, silver
sculpture, from the Roman Invictus, relief from Hatra, disk, Roman, 3 rd century AD,
Imperial period, Gods, Heroes Iraq, 2nd C , from Ernst H. 12 Feb 2009 <en.wikipedia.org/
Being, hidden from the sight of man and conceivable only through reason (129). There
was an evolution of Mithra from demon fighter to solar deity and divine intermediary,
later to be hailed in Rome as Sol Invictus (Unconquerable Sun) (89). This especially
bears upon the major ancillary question of this study: the Sun-god Moon-god alternating
domination. The ramifications go far beyond the inner rituals of the cult itself.
According to Cumont, Mithraism spread across the Roman Empire after it had
already taken solid form during the Macedonian conquest when Greek religion blended
with the Iranian. He believed it was this "seductive" Hellenic form that made it more
palatable to the West {Mysteries 14-15). He believed Asiatic priests pretended to discover
their sacred tradition in the philosophic theories of the West (25). That is a major point
with which this thesis takes exception, seeing rather a common origin to both as the
Cumont goes on to postulate the continued spread of the cult by way of Cilician
pirates who were avid devotees of Mithra and the exposure of Roman troops to them as
Rome conquered Cilicia (in Anatolia) and used its men to fill its legions, as they did also
with men from Pontus and Syria, not to mention enlisting squadrons of Parthian cavalry
{Mysteries 41-3). Thus, Cumont bases his primary theory on the spread of the cult in the
Roman West on the movement of these Iranianized troops and also of slaves taken from
the same areas (38). An important brick in the edifice of our thesis, uncovered by Cumont
but not as fully integrated by him as it shall be by this study, is this: There was a virtual
"race change" in the Roman Empire after the time of Vespasian (AD 69-79). Mangones
33
(slave mongers) drove great hordes of "Syrian" slaves into Rome—so many that they
In addition to these slaves, Syrian traders, seeing the chance for profit, "populated
with their colonies all the shores of the Mediterranean," and earlier, in the Hellenic era,
had established themselves in the great trading centers of Greece. Their numbers were
dense in Gaul, and large settlements existed in Pozzuoli, Ostia, Lyon, and Treves (in the
north). These hordes of Syrians brought with them their Eastern cults, particularly that of
fugitives—lived in Rome as well, along with their families and entourages, practicing
their Mazdean faith (80). The Mithraic Mysteries appeared "almost simultaneously" all
over the empire; and, by the time of the Antonines (AD 138-80), even philosophers and
writers became interested in the cult. Lucian, Celsus, Pallas, and Porphyry all wrote of it.
The cult finally reached the Imperial Court, and Emperor Commodus (AD 180-92)
became an initiate (81-83). Here lies a most important point in our thesis: the emperors
themselves became initiates. The concomitant results of that will be explained later.
Roger Beck takes exception to Cumont in one major aspect: the foundational
origin of the Roman Cult of Mithra. Beck notes that until recently "Mithraism in the East
. . . was generally thought to be a later back-formation from the cult in the West" (Beck,
Mysteries 118), for example, the discovery of the mithraeum at Dura Europos (Syria)
(Hopkins 200). Beck places the beginning of Roman Mithraism with a "founding group"
as he calls it, composed of the military and civilian dependents of the dynasty of
Commagene (see map Figure 33) as they moved from being client rulers to Roman
aristocrats (Beck, Mysteries 121). He believes that "The Mysteries were 'founded'
wherever subsets of this highly mobile Commagenian founding group interacted with
Fig. 33. First century BC Empire of Armenia, map, 20 Jan. 2009 < http://www.Armenia.org>.
Beck also believes the Roman Mithraic Mysteries were a new creation, but one which
drew upon older traditions, the bull-killing as a "salvific act" being their primary
"invention," as he calls it. He says this occurred in the first century AD and that there is
no Iranian original of the tauroctonous Mithra (123). Cumont, of course, had seen the
35
transformation of Mazdaism to Mithraism occurring in the Hellenizing pre-Christian
centuries (125). Beck takes another big step when postulating the astrological
astrologer connected to the Commagenian court, who was also Vespasian's favorite,
served as Roman prefect of Egypt from AD 55 to 59, and headed the museum and library
at Alexandria as well. Beck believes that these positions held by Balbillus resulted in the
Manfred Clauss disagrees with Cumont, Beck, and Ulansey and insists the Roman
Cult of Mithra had its origins in the city of Rome itself or in Ostia, saying: "The
mysteries cannot be shown to have developed from Persian religious ideas, nor does it
argument that Mithraism was never a real threat to the spread of Christianity he draws
attention to the fact that the cult "never became one of those supported by the state with
public funds and was never admitted to the official list of festivals celebrated by the state
and the army" and adds that the same was true of all the mystery cults. He sees the
initiation into the cult by Emperor Commodus and its congeniality to the reigning
political order and its military legions as prime reasons for its wide dispersion (27-30).
northwards into Germany, Clauss says "we must assume that it was Italians who brought
the cult of Mithras to the Danube and the Rhine" (38-39). Yes, but of what racial stock
were these "Italians" of whom he speaks? He fails to take into account the massive "race
change" that Cumont had shown occurred in Italy after the time of Vespasian (AD 69-79)
{Mysteries 61-64). "Syrians" referred to persons from the Levant to the Iranian border.
In other important points, Clauss stresses the identification of the bull with the
Moon and "Mithras, as the Sun, overcomes the bull, and thereby also the Moon, from
earliest times a symbol of death and restoration to life" (84). He denigrates astrological
make such connections himself (89-90). The torch-bearing twins, Cautes (who holds his
torch up) and Cautopates (who holds his down) are seen by Clauss as representing
sunrise and sunset; the gods Oriens and Occidens (East and West); the Sun and the
Moon; or, fourthly, part of the "three-fold Mithras" alluded to by the sixth-century
Christian writer Dionysius the Areopagite (82, 95-96). He also mentions a possible
connection of the twins to the two halves of the year, as in several relief sculptures (i.e.
the one from Sarmizegetusa, Romania) Cautes carries a bull head and Cautopates a
scorpion, the astrological signs of the months beginning each half of the year—Taurus
and Scorpio (97). Whereas Beck sees the bull slaying as a salvific act, Clauss simply
sees it as new life burgeoning "out of the death of the bull," which "new life is true, real
The mythic panels of the life of Mithra portray him hunting (rustling might be a
better word) (Cumont, St. George 67), overcoming, then dragging the bull (with its hind
legs over his shoulders) to a cave to slay it (see Figures 34 and 36) (Clauss 77). The
meanings of the snake and the scorpion figure prominently in the scholarly contentions as
well. The scorpion is usually shown clawing at the testicles of the bull (see Figure 35),
Fig. 34. Taurophorus Poetovio Fig. 35. Grand Mithraic bas- Fig. 36. Mithra with star cape, 2n C.
(Spodnja Hajdina, Slovenia) relief of Heddernheim, Germany, Marino, Italy, ed. David Ulansey,
2nd C , Pokrajinski Muzej Ptuj. in the center stand Mithra and the "The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithra,"
9 Dec. 2008 <http:// two torchbearers, from Franz Mithraism. 11 Feb. 2009
<http://www.sacred-texts.com>.
and all the major authors consider this as an attack on the bull (Clauss 99; Cumont,
Mysteries 137), but when does a scorpion attack with its claws? Does it not use the
As for the snake, it is typically shown underneath the bull or with its mouth at the
wound made by the dagger of Mithra, so all scholars assume it is drinking the blood
(Clauss 100). In some sculptures the krater (cup) is placed under the bull, as in the
Fellbach (near Stuttgart) relief (122). It is perhaps significant that the krater is placed
directly under the penis of the bull, not under the wound. Cumont concluded that the cup
contained just water (Frothingham 59; Cumont, Mysteries 116); but, when considered in
conjunction with the Fellbach (Stuttgart) relief, where the snake's head is at the top of the
vessel ready to drink from it, a different possible meaning unfolds (Clauss 122). The
38
Divine Bull was created at the beginning of the world by Ahura Mazda as the source
from which all animal and vegetable life would spring (Cumont, St. George 68). Could
the krater, therefore, be holding something other than water, and the snake be harvesting
The cult-relief from Sia Jebel Hauran, Syria, from the forecourt of the temple of
Dusares, might provide elucidation. This image shows the snake sucking semen from the
penis of the bull (Clauss 101). It was commonly held that the snake was an earth symbol,
and the crescent-shaped horns sometimes depicted on the bull showed it to be a Moon
referent (Cumont, Mysteries 119). Frothingham informs us "that it was from the seed of
the bull transported at his death to the sphere of the moon that creation was to be
produced" (59). New life burgeons out of the death of the bull, "and this new life, which
is true, real life, is owed to Mithras alone" (Clauss 101; Suhr 215). Is the snake then a
chthonic symbol relating to earth, water, or underworld imbibing of the life seed
ejaculated by the Divine Bull, as the krater is perhaps the repository of the regenerating
seed? Zeus impregnated Persephone (goddess of the Underworld) in the form of a snake.
god in the form of a snake. And, in the Mysteries of Sabazius the sacred ritual contained
a phallic snake, which the initiate had to touch in the half-dark initiation chamber, not
knowing if it was real or artificial (Burkert, Ancient 106). So the snake, as will be shown
later, figured significantly in cultic symbology throughout the Near East, and in the
accoutrements of the mithrae, such as drinking vessels {kraters), "the creature occurs
presented what was considered by the consensus a radical viewpoint; he interpreted the
tauroctony as a star map depicting the precession of the equinoxes and the position of the
the Iranian Mithra (of Zoroastrianism) ever killing a bull; instead, it was Ahriman (the
evil god) that slew the bull, forcing Cumont to "hypothesize a variant on this myth"
{Origins 9). Ulansey further remarked on Cumont's use of the terms "incoherence and
absurdity" in reference to "this body of doctrine" (the Zoroastrian story), stating that the
problem was not with the doctrines but with Cumont's sometimes forced assumptions
and arbitrary interpretations (10). It is true, though, that the Bundahishn (Zoroastrian
scripture) does prophesy that Soshyant, the Zoroastrian "savior," will (at the end of time)
sacrifice a bull, and from its fat form a drink that will give immortality to those who
Clauss admits that the zodiacal Taurus and Scorpio are associated in agricultural
calendars with the beginnings of summer and winter (87), as does Cumont, when he
associates the dadophori with the same {Mysteries 128-30). Ulansey sees the Taurus-
Scorpio connections and has them symbolizing the equinoxes (64). A cult relief from
Rome solidifies this contention, as two trees stand in the background of the tauroctony,
40
one with a lowered torch and fruit on it, the other with a raised torch and only leaves on
it. A scorpion is attached to the fruit-bearing tree, and the head of a bull to the leafy tree
The consensus holds that Mithra was born from the rock (Cumont, Mysteries 131). The
god is typically shown emerging from the rock with upraised arms, as on the relief from
(England) (Clauss 63-44). The consensus also holds that the rock symbolizes the cosmos
or the earth from which Mithra is born (65-67). Ulansey begs to differ; after having
Maarteen Vermassen) that Mithra was "forced out of the rock as if by some hidden magic
power. He is the new begetter of light {genitor luminis), born from the rock {dues genitor
rupe natus), from a rock which gives birth (petra genetrixy {Origins 35).
The consensus sees Mithra as born into the world as kosmocrator (universal
ruler), but Ulansey sees him as born out of the world. A relief from Rome depicts Mithra
emerging from (or enclosed in) a cosmic egg and surrounded by the zodiac {Origins 122).
In another image he is shown appearing to turn the wheel of the zodiac while holding the
cosmic sphere (99), and on yet another relief he holds the sphere of the world on his
shoulders as Atlas (98). Thus, Ulansey sees Mithra as being born out of a world that has
been destroyed by fire (recalling a Zoroastrian prophecy), becoming the new supreme
god, above all gods, and ruler of the universe, with power over all the planets and stars
41
(95-112). Most other scholars scoff at this "astrological" interpretation (Serith 7; Clauss
Below, in Figure 37, Mithra is being born from the Cosmic egg, the Zodiac
surrounding him, and in Figures 38 and 39 he is emerging from solid rock. Many dozens
of such images have been found in mithrae across Europe, and thus it may be assumed
that they hold significant positions and meanings in Mithraic mystical symbology.
Fig. 37. Mithra born from Fig. 38. Mithra born from rock, Fig. 39. Rock-born Mithra.
Housesteads, from Manfred David Ulansey, The Origins of Nazionale Romano, Roma,
Clauss, The Roman Cult of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology from Manfred Clauss, The
Mithras: The God and His and Salvation in the Ancient World Roman Cult of Mithras: The
Mysteries (New York: (New York: Oxford UP, 1989) God and His Mysteries (New
Keeping in mind the Zoroastrian prophecy about the destruction of the world by
fire (more specifically molten metal) at the end of time and, the emergence of a Divine
Savior (Soshyant) who will slay a bull and offer men the drink of immortality, one cannot
help but be drawn to a tiny image in Clauss' book of a cult-relief of the "rock-born"
Mithra from Bulgaria, where flames shoot out of the ground below him. Another cult
relief from Dura-Europos has flames "shooting out of the rock as Mithras' body
42
emerges" (Clauss 129; Suhr 216). This seems to lend credence to Ulansey's theory.
Therefore, his main argument—that Mithra was seen as a ruler above the powers of the
fixed spheres and all the other gods—becomes plausible. In Chapter 5 this idea will be
Ulansey pointed out that in 4000 BC, the approximate date of the beginning of the
Age of Taurus, the constellations along the celestial equator were exactly those pictured
on the tauroctony (see Figure 40) {Origins 47-51). Allesandro Bausani explained the
combat (see Figure 41), and others speculated that Perseus, the founder of Tarsus, a
Mithraic cult center, symbolized the lion (the city's emblem was a lion atop a bull). Leo
Fig. 40. Constellations along the celestial equator, "Earliest History of the Constellations,"
reflecting those typically portrayed on the tauroctony, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24 (1965): 17.
sinks below the horizon (21, 45). This idea is expanded in Chapter 5 as the lion-bull
combat motif is traced back in time. The Sun and other astral symbols figure significantly
in ancient Near Eastern iconography, as for example, Ahura Mazda in the winged Sun-
disk and King Nabonidus of Babylonia on a stele with the Sun and astral symbols (see
After reviewing some of the basic theories held by the most prominent Mithraic
scholars it becomes apparent that there is extensive wrangling and disagreement as to the
meanings and interpretations of the iconography and the origins of the cult, even after
several international conferences held at Manchester, Teheran, and Rome, and a scholarly
journal devoted especially to Mithraic studies (Clauss xx). This all makes the controversy
more interesting.
Fig. 42. Sun-god Ahura Mazda inside winged-disk, Fig. 43. Nabonidus, King of Babylonia (556-539 BC)
Palace of Xerxes, 5th C. BC, Persepolis, Iran, 18 with symbols of Moon, Sun (winged-disk) and Venus,
Dec. 2008 <http://www.livius.org.au-az/avesta/ British Museum, photo by Marco Prins, 16 Feb. 2009
avesta/html>. <http://www.livius.Org/a/l/mesopotamia/
Nabonidus.jpf>.
44
CHAPTER 4
In our time many scholars are interested in digging into the past in an attempt to
discover the true roots of the Christian religion. Old ideas are falling away quickly, and
uncovered epigraphical evidence come new theories concerning the origins of various
rituals, dogmas, iconography, and beliefs of the Christian Church. During the several
centuries preceding the Christian era and the several centuries following the birth of Jesus
the Roman world played host to a seething mix of religions—both the traditional Greco-
Roman and the more "exotic" cults from Egypt and the East. Syncretism was the rule of
the day, and the result was cults and Mysteries with admixtures of various origins. The
days of naivety are over, and now serious students of religion realize that Christianity did
not form entirely from the teachings of one man or group, just as they also realize many
stories in the Torah did not originate only with the Hebrews who transcribed them.
45
A look shall be taken at the fascinating postulations which claim that a number of
the primary doctrines, as well as elements of the iconography and ritual of the Christian
Church (i.e. the Roman Church), were either influenced by, sprang from, were borrowed
from, or were inherited from the Mysteries of Mithra and Mazdaism. But, what must be
kept in mind as well is this important fact, which shall be expounded in later chapters.
Mithraism itself was but one expression of the sacred Mysteries; therefore, any element
of that particular system might well be also an aspect of other mystery cults, including
The syncretism prevalent among various religions and cults during the several
centuries before and after Christ will be discussed. Secondly, archaeological and
concerning the role that city and region may have played in the syncretism and
transmission of the Mithraic mysteries westward. Lastly, the many similarities between
Mithraism and Christianity shall be reviewed, with possible reasons for their occurrence.
Grecian and Eastern cultures. In the realm of religion, syncretism in the Hellenized East
was the rule of the day. The Mazdean Ahura Mazda was conflated with Zeus, Hercules
became synonymous with the hero Verethraghna, and "Anahita, to whom the bull was
Shamash, and Iranian Mithra became one with the Greek Helios (Cumont, Mysteries 20-
22). Syria figures prominently as a bridge for ideas moving back and forth between East
46
and West. The cosmopolitan nature of the cities of Syria at the time must have facilitated
this mixing of gods. Syria was for centuries crossed by East-West caravan routes, with
exchange of goods from China and India improved even more by the presence of Roman
religiously—between East and West, and "Through Roman . . . times Syria became the
Romans held no bias toward foreign religions, and exotic cults had been popular in
Rome for centuries. The cult of the Great Mother of Anatolia had been practiced in Italy
since the second century BC, and the Cult of Isis was immensely popular there as well
(MacMullen 114). Pagan cults were not at all exclusivist like the jealous god of Israel
worshipped, the temples featured a Mithra in fully Parthian garb, and the weapon he uses
to slay the bull is not a Roman sword but an akinakes, a Persian dagger or short sword
(Hopkins 203). Consideration of all this warrants a deeper analysis of what was
happening in Syria and a closer examination of the religious syncretism going on there.
Dura-Europos
One of the most important archaeological sites in Syria is the city of Dura-
Europos, a full-fledged Roman colony on the banks of the Euphrates (Hopkins 224). The
site was discovered by accident and later excavated by Franz Cumont in 1922 (Teicher
Hatrian, Palmyrenean, Middle Persian, and Safaitic Persian were found there (Millar 445-
52, 467-72). Temples of Greek, Roman, and Palmyrene gods were uncovered, in addition
47
to the oldest Jewish synagogue extant and the earliest known "Christian house church."
Frescoes in the church followed the Hellenistic Jewish iconographic tradition, and
parchment scrolls with Hebrew text were discovered inside (Teicher 99-109). In his book,
Dura in the third century is that we have in this outpost sacred buildings of the three great
There were two mithrae in the city. Clauss denied Mithraism was a "forerunner"
to Christianity. He related that native divinities were assimilated in mithrae, as was the
local mountain deity Turmasgad, who was identified with Mithra in Dura Europos.
Mercury had a close relation to Mithras, in Germany the mother-goddesses were popular
in temples of Mithra, and in Crimea the god Attis was equated with Mithra (Clauss 157).
There was lively interchange among the various mystery cults, as individuals "passed
freely from one cult to another" (Case 56). Frequent admixture of foreign elements into
native religions and the renaming and conflation of gods took place everywhere (61).
Ramsay MacMullen, in his seminal work, Paganism in the Roman Empire, tells us
"several older cults in Greece and Asia Minor took on broadly similar shapes through
mutual imitation" (122). Holy days of various gods were kept sacred in whatever area or
under whatever name they went by in an "unchanging calendar," as in the case of the
goddess Cybele. Rituals of Serapis in Rome "closely followed the Egyptian calendar,"
and "when Ma of Comana [in Capodicia] took r o o t . . . in Pontus, her new home was
called Comana too, and her new services used the same procedures in sacrifices, divine
inspiration and veneration for priests" (Strabo qtd. in MacMullen 100). The point here is
48
that there was amazing continuity in the practices and iconography associated with each
Keeping in mind what was said in Chapter 3 about the "race change" in Italy and
the general mixing of "Syrians" throughout the Roman Empire, it is not hard to imagine
how the Christian cult might blend in "Eastern" elements (i.e. Mithraic) with its already
established Judaic ones. It was standard procedure, especially since the days of the Greek
philosophers, to compare and contrast other beliefs with one's own. Aristotle's pupils had
discussed the ideas of Egyptians, Chaldeans, Zoroastrians, Indians, and Jews. This
concept of barbaros philosophia, Burkert tells us, had "by then been appropriated by
according to many modern scholars of Mithraism, that the cult took its "Romanized"
form, and it may have been there where its syncretism with Christianity began. Could this
have been helped along by the Emperors? "Attention was increasingly focused on the
Orient during this period .. ." as "for the first time, natives of Syria were becoming
Roman emperors." Severus (r. 193-211) "married into an important family from Emesa,
descended from dignitaries and priests of the sun cult in Emesa" (Binst 92). The Council
of Nicea in 325 "included many Syrians, Phoenicians, and bishops from Arabia" (211).
So, Syria and the "Syrians" were at center stage in the religio-political activities in the
The forms and rituals used by the Christian Church are often analogous to earlier
pre-Christian forms. During the reign of Artaxerxes Memnon in Persia (404-358 BC) the
hero Mithra was elevated to membership in the divine triad of Zoroastrianism as mediator
between Ahura Mazda (the good god) and Ahriman (the evil god). In Baalbek (first and
second centuries AD) the Romanized divine triad consisted of Jupiter, Venus, and
Mercury, with Mercury as divine mediator (Suhr 215-18). The later Christian triad of
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost may be seen as partly analogous, with Christ as mediator.
Perhaps the most blatant similarity between the Mysteries of Mithra and
Christianity is the date of birth of both Mithra and Christ: December 25th (Clauss 66).
Under the Julian Calendar this was the winter solstice, regarded by Romans as the
nativity of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (the Invincible Sun) (Nabarz 47). The day of Saturn
(Saturday) had been held holy by ancient Romans and Jews, but worshippers of Mithra
and Jesus held Sunday, the day of the Sun, as sacred. Both Jesus and Mithra saved the
world through the shedding of "eternal blood" (48). An inscription in the mithraeum
below the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome reads, "and you saved us after having shed the
Christianity is dualistic in its dogma pitting the Devil against God, good angels
against fallen angels—the forces of darkness against the forces of light (Meyer 199). In
the same manner the ancient Zoroastrian (and Mithraic) religion pitted good against evil,
as holy Ahura Mazda battled the evil Angra Manyu (Ahriman) (Ulansey, Origins 9),
whose symbol was the snake, and who is called the Great Lie {durug in Farsi). The newly
50
enlightened Buddha was tempted by Mara, and Zarathustra, after having received the
revelations of Ahura Mazda was tempted by a demon sent by Angra Mainyu (Jackson 51-
53).This may be compared to the Judeo-Christian tempting of Eve in Genesis and to the
Jesus and Mithra were both born of virgin mothers, Mary and Dughdova
respectively (Nabarz 2, 48). Just as the Holy Mother Mary is revered in the Holy Roman
and Orthodox Catholic Churches, so was the Virgin Mother Anahita in Mithraism (4).
Anahita wore a golden crown with a hundred stars, with eight rays (98), and the Virgin
Mary is often portrayed with a starry crown or veil and rays emanating from her body
The Great Mother of the Gods, Cybele, was conflated with Anahita, Artemis,
Bellona, Astarte, Ashtoreth, Ishtar, Ma of Phrygia, Demeter, Minerva, Diana, Luna, and
others (MacMullen 90; Vernant, Greeks 264; Meyer 6; Cumont, Mysteries 112), and in
Italy she was worshipped as Magna Mater (The Great Mother) (Burkert, Ancient 2). In
Syria, Dea Syria (Syrian Goddess) was usually "identified by the lions around her
throne" (Binst 126) (recall the Mother Goddess of Catal Huyiik). Isis, of course, predates
them all, and as C.W. Leadbeater tells us in Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites:
"Isis was the Mother of all that lives, and the wisdom and truth and power. . . .The moon
was her symbol; and the influence she outpoured upon her worshippers . . . was of
brilliant blue light veined with delicate silver, as of shimmering moonbeams, the very
touch of which brought upliftment and ecstasy" (see Figures 44 and 46 for comparisons
with the Virgin Mary) (19). In Chapter 5 more will be said of Queen Isis.
51
Fig. 44. William-Adolphe Fig. 45. Anahita, Iranian Mother Fig. 46. Mary Queen of the
Bourgereau, The Virgin and Goddess, with her lions, 18 Dec. World, with rays and crescent
Angels. 1900, Petit Palais 2008 <http://www.cais/ moon, 18 Dec. 2008 <http://
In addition to the two great gods, Mithraism had seven immortal gods of the
world, and the New Testament speaks of "seven Spirits which are before His throne"
(Nabarz 51; Heindel 180). In Zoroastrianism these were the Amshaspands (Amesha
Spentas, Holy Immortals) (Jackson 41-42; Arjomand 245-46). The Apocalypse (Book of
Revelation) tells of the coming of a Divine Judge at the end of the age and speaking of
that future time condemns evil doers to a "pool that burns with fire and brimstone"
(Apoc. 21.8) (Holy Bible, 343). The Zoroastrian Soshyant comes to destroy by fire
(molten metal) and renew the world at the end of time (Serith 13). Mithra, by shedding
the blood of the bull, bursting forth from the cave of the world, and turning the Greco-
Babylonian zodiac (Sarton 70-72), initiates a New World Order, as Apocalypse has
Christ doing when he returns in triumph (Apoc 21.1-27) (Holy Bible 343).
52
On Italian medallions found in the catacombs and on Christian sarcophagi from
the early fourth century the Magi (the name for Zoroastrian priests) who came to adore
the newborn Christ are depicted as three men in Persian garb wearing the Phrygian cap of
Mithra. The Magi are beardless and carrying their gifts on plates, as the general style was
adopted from Roman triumphal art showing barbarians bringing tribute (Clauss 169).
Mithra wore the diadem of the Sun and is believed by most scholars to be conflated
with Apollo, Helios, and other Sun-gods (see Figure 47). A third-century mosaic depicts
Christ (see Figure 48) as the Sun-god Apollo (Geitlin 378). As Kosmocrator (see Figure
49) (Clauss 70) Mithra was responsible for the movement of the universe and the
precession of the equinoxes (Ulansey, Mithras 257-64). Christ became Sol Iustitiae, the
f I*. T ' * *
Fig. 47. Helios in His Chariot Fig. 48. Christ as the Sun, Fig. 49. Mithra as Kosmocrator
435 B.C., British Museum, London. detail from 3 rd C. mosaic Turning the Zodiac, c i s t - 3rd
Catalogue No.: London E466 under St. Peter's Necropolis, C. AD, from David Ulansey, The
Attic Red Figure, Calyx Krater, from Mark Geitlin, Living Origin of the Mithraic Mysteries:
High Classical, 11 Feb. 2009 with Art (Boston: McGraw, Cosmology and Salvation in the
Doresse, paraphrasing the Codex Askewianus (the first two books of the Pistis Sophia),
relates that Jesus, after his return, tells his disciples on the Mount of Olives that he has
"just overthrown the evil powers of the celestial spheres...." He "abolished the course of
Fate; he changed the regular movement of the spheres into an alternating movement, so
that the planets could no longer exert their malign influence upon men . . . " (67-68).
typically sees the imposing image of the Pantocrator (Christ as Ruler of the Universe)
dominating the dome of the sanctuary (see Figure 50). Modern Latin Rite (Roman)
Catholic imagery of Christ as the universal ruler can be seen in Figure 52. A fifth-
century Byzantine image from Ravenna (Kantorowicz 386) depicts Christ in full Imperial
garb, again as a universal ruler (see Figure 51). In Christian Gnosticism a descendant of
Fig. 50. Christ Pantokrator, Fig. 51. Christ as Imperator in full Fig. 52. Christ as Universal Ruler,
13th Century Fresco, Menil Imperial Garb, 5th C. Ravenna, from modern depiction, 24 Dec. 2008
The Pater of the Mysteries of Mithra wore a red cap and vestments and carried a
shepherd's crook (Nabarz 49), just as prelates of the Latin and Eastern Churches do (see
Figures 53-57 ). Masonic participants in the rites of the Rose Croix (18th) degree
Figs. 53.-57. (From left to right) Maronite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Boutres Sfeir, 14 Feb. 2009
2008 <http://www.saintmary.net/copticfaith/pope>.
(sometimes called the "Christian degree") wear red and white vestments (see Figures 58
and 59) and partake of a "mystic supper," as in the mithrae of ancient Rome and in the
ritual of Amen of the Egyptian Mysteries (Leadbeater 73). The mitre (Greek for Mitra)
cap marked the office of bishop in the Christian Church, and the title "father" (pater) was
adopted for priests of the Church (Nabarz 49). And, as Mithra rose from the rock or
cosmic egg, Christ rose from the rock tomb, and eggs (red in the oldest Christian
Figs. 58. and 59. Rose Croix Masons in Red and White Ritual Garb, Fig. 60. Coptic Easter Eggs,
during a medallion presentation, and a Rose Croix Officer in Red Cap 23 Mar. 2008 <http://
and Red and White Robes, holding a basket of fresh red roses, photos www.thegarance.com/
rreed3/2168181816/in/photostream>.
In the Eastern Orthodox Churches the Mother of God is called the Theotokos, her
icon dominating the main wall of the church. Christ typically appears on her lap, as she is
the Throne of Christ. In Mithraism, as in Mazdaism, the Great Mother Goddess, Anahita
or Magna Mater (in Rome)—and much earlier as Diktynna in the Cretan Mysteries
(Leadbeater 51) and Isis in the Egyptian Mysteries (Meyer 190)—was venerated in the
mithrae alongside Mithra (207). Initiates in the mithrae partook of the sacred meal of
bread and wine. In Catholic churches the Eucharistic host (bread wafer) is held up for the
adoration of the congregation (see Figure 63), as the very body of the god, ensconced
the Blessed Mother—massive in size and seated between two angels over the Ark of the
56
Covenant and her crescent moon—enshrines, within herself, a twelve-inch host (see
Figure 61). In Figure 62 the Sun symbol on the vestment of the priest is visible. The
Figs. 61. and 62. Our Lady of the Sign: Ark of the Covenant, created by Fig. 63. Pope John Paul II raising
Stefan Niedorezo, gilded by Malgorzata Sawczuk, St.Stanilaus Kostka host for adoration, 12 Feb.2009
10442151@N00/16868948>.
host within the monstrance is Christ the Sun. Mary is the Throne as Theotokos, the
mother of god, as Anahita is the mother of Sun-god Mithra, and Isis is the mother of Sun
god Horus.
Many more similarities between the Catholic Mysteries and the Mysteries of
Mithra could be enumerated. Are the similarities due more to a common origin of the two
cults (Christian and Mithraic), rather than a borrowing of one from the other? Figures 64
and 65 depict images of Hermes and the Calf Bearer from ancient Greece that appear to
be the precursors of the third-to fourth-century sculpture called Christ the Good Shepherd
(see Figure 66). A fifth-century mosaic from the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in
Ravenna also depicts Christ as the good shepherd (see Figure 67). The much more
57
Fig. 64., 65., and 66. On the left, Hermes as Shepherd, Archaic Period Fig. 67. Christ as the Good
(600-480 BC) Greek relief sculpture fragment, 24 May 2009 <http:// Shepherd, mosaic, c.425-
Moschoforos, The Calf Bearer, 570 BC, probably by Phaidimos, of Galla Placidia, Ravenna,
Acropolis Museum, Athens, and right, Hermes Kriophoros (or Apollo Italy, 24 May 2009 <http://
Nomios), also called Christ the Good Shepherd, 3rd-4th C , 24 May www.accd.edu/arthistory/
ancient Chaldean and Egyptian mysteries had similar iconography and rituals. Chapter 5
The main thesis being presented here is that Mithraism in its Roman form
cannot be considered as anomalous and in isolation, but rather must be looked upon as a
part of a greater whole, that whole being all the cults of the Sacred Mysteries, which
arose not each and every one singly and unconnected, but as the colorful and fascinating
branches of one great tree, with a common descent, also syncretistically conjoined. In
defense of this assertion several elements of the Mysteries of Mithra as practiced by the
Romans will be shown to be of much earlier design and usage, and the Sumero-
review of the commonality and conflation of gods among ancient kingdoms and the
Any cursory glance at a map of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East shows
how very near all the ancient civilizations were to one another. Syria, the all-important
crossroads in Roman times, was an Egyptian province in the fourteenth century BC.
59
Akkadian (the Semitic language of Mesopotamia) by that time had become the
diplomatic lingua franca among nations (Na'aman 52). At a time of Hittite expansion
into Syria, the kingdom of Mitanni sought to halt it by allying itself to the other great
power—Egypt—by the marriage of a Hurrian princess to Thutmose IV. During the reign
of Akhenaten the Hittite king Suppiluliuma took as his wife and queen the daughter of
The power of Hatti was so great at that time that Queen Ankhesenpaaten,
(Bryce 193). The prince was murdered; the Hittites seized most of Egyptian Syria and
carried thousands of prisoners back to Hatti (198), later taking Carchemish from the
Assyrians and conquering Aleppo and Ugarit, thus consolidating their control over Syria
father feared the gods—on the upper citadel he let no one into the presence of (the deity)
[Kubaba (?)] and of (the deity) Lamma, and he did not rush close to any one of the
temples.... But from the lower town he removed the inhabitants, silver, gold, and bronze
utensils and carried them to Hattusa" (qtd. in Bryce 194). Here a conquering king
removed the population and wealth of a great city but dared not go near the precinct of its
gods. He apparently either recognized their authority, even though these were the gods of
another people or simply was too afraid of some power to risk it. The answer will become
The Mycenaean world was intimately a part of the Near Eastern cultural orbit. In the
fourteenth century BC the Hittites had established relations with people they called the
Origins, 18-19). Mycenaeans came to dominate Crete by 1450 BC, took Cyprus, and
made the old Cretan colony in Ugarit (Syria) Mycenaean. They also held Alalakh,
"gateway to the Euphrates and Mesopotamia," and "made their way as far as Phoenicia,
Byblos, and Palestine" (21). The Achaeans were now the intermediaries between Egypt
and mainland Europe, a role formerly played by Crete, and may have had a colony in El-
Amarna during the reign of Akhenaten (22). This shows, contrary to former beliefs, that
the Greeks were thoroughly a part of the socio-cultural milieu of the ancient Near East. It
stands to reason that cultic beliefs as well as cultural ideas would be exchanged.
At this point it is important to remember how very different the thinking was at
that time, as compared to the rigid creeds, dogmas, and exclusivism of the denominations
of today. Vernant tells us that "for ancient Greek man, the world was not that objectified
external universe, cut off from man by the impassable barrier that separates matter from
the mind, the physical from the psychic. Man was in a relationship . . . with the animate
universe to which everything connected him" (Greeks 12). People readily identified their
Yazilikaya) of the Hittite pantheon. The chief god carries a three-pronged symbol of
authority. The chief goddess stands upon a lion (see Figure 70). Also appearing on the
relief are the winged Sun-disks over four columns, a double-headed eagle, symbolic
mountains shaped like pine cones, and various other deities in procession (Ward 5).
As can clearly be seen in Figures 68 through 71, the chief goddess has as her
symbol the ever-present lion, whether she appears under the name of Inanna or Cybele,
M
.iYT%? V-"
11
» . * , •
u
g% -f^\
Figs. 68. and 69. Goddess Inanna with Her Lion, Figs. 70. and 71. Boghaz-keui Chief God and
Sumerian period, Sumerian Gods, ed. Ellie Crystal, Goddess (c. 1600-1200 BC), from The Syrian
12 Nov. 2008 <http://www.crystalinks.com/ Goddess in History and Art. 7 Dec. 2008 <http://
sumergods.html>, and Urartian Inanna (c. 900-600 www.sacred-texts.org>, and Cybele, Great Mother
BC), called the Urartu Sphinx, 12 Feb. 2009 <http:// of Anatolia and Magna Mater of Rome (from 205
whether in Sumeria, Urartu (Armenia), Anatolia, or Rome. Speaking of the art and
tells us they were "permeated with the elements borrowed from [the] two more ancient
sources [Egypt and Babylonia]" (14). Several Hittite cylinders clearly depict Egyptian
62
gods Ra-Horakte and the ibis-headed Djehuti (Thoth) (15). Another illustrates Phoenician
god Resheph holding a bull on a leash, an eight-pointed star, and an Egyptian crux ansata
(tau cross) (18). Resheph is conflated with Syrian Hadad and Hittite Teshub. Inanna is
Ashtoreth and also Kadesh (see Figures 72 and 73), her Hittite name thought to be Ishara
(21-29). She typically appears with her lion beside or under her, as on an Assyrian iron
helmet from Nimrud (Dezso and Curtis 107) in the shape of a Phrygian cap.
assumed the name Sun-Goddess of Arinna . . . but in . . . the land . . . of cedars (that is,
Syria) you have assumed the name Hebat" (Beckman 100). Two additional reliefs from
Yazilikaya (Ward 24-25) are worth noticing here. In the first (see Figure 74) Inanna, a
Sumerian goddess, appears on the Hittite monument under a winged canopy, and in a
nearby relief the ubiquitous Near Eastern symbol of the ladder appears winged. Both
Inanna and the ladder rest upon the backs of bulls (see Figures 74 and 75).
Figs. 72. and 73. Kadesh of Syria, adopted Figs. 74. and 75. Boghaz-keui depictions of Inanna under
into the Egyptian pantheon, and Inanna of a winged canopy and a seven-stepped winged ladder
Sumeria, Sumerian Gods, ed. Ellie Crystal, on the back of a bull, (1600-1400 BC), Turkey, from
6 Dec. 2008 <http://www.crystalinks.com/ William Hayes Ward "The Hittite Gods in Hittite Art,"
Lucian tells us "the Ritual of the Phrygians . . . Lydians, and Samothracians was entirely
learned from Attes." He then relates how, deprived of his manhood, Attis dressed as a
woman and "roaming the whole earth he performed his mysterious rites.... In the course
of his wanderings he passed into Syria where he built a temple to himself...." The image
of the deity in the temple was that of a female "drawn by lions" (qtd. in Strong 56).
"Mithra is twy-sexed," relates Strong, "figuring in some versions as a female . . . " (322),
and Osiris with Isis-Latona (Blavatsky, Secret 2: 130). As has been stated, Mithra was
identified with Hermes (see Figure 78), and Hermes was the Greek name for the Egyptian
Toth (Djehuti), who, in the mural from Egypt depicted in Figure 77 below, assists the
(Osiris) presides. The "intermediary" or "bridge" between the divine world and the
Figs. 76., 77., and 78. Cybele and Attis, Museo Archaeologico, Venezia, Italia, her lion accompanies
headed god, assisting deceased while Osiris, Lord of the Underworld, looks on, Egyptian mural, 17 Feb.
Mysteries 87,179); a cult statue from Crimea illustrates the conflation (Clauss 157).
Mercury "was identical with the Mazdean Mithra" and was "the leader of and the
evocator of souls, the 'great Magician' and the Heirophant." He is symbolized in Greek
Mercury that Julian prayed to the Occult Sun every night (Blavatsky, Secret 2: 28). This
Hermes-Serameyas of the Greeks was related to the Hindu Saram and Sarameya.
informs us that in the ancient Brahmanic teachings "The Globe propelled . . . by the Spirit
of the Earth and his six assistants, gets all its vital forces, life, and powers through the
medium of the seven planetary Dhyanis from the Spirit of the Sun" (29).
were, in the ancient Egyptian stellar cult, "seven divinities, called Lords of Eternity." He
continues that in the ancient Egyptian ritual (incorporated into the eighteenth Masonic
degree, Rose Croix) the candidate "had to pass through difficulties, danger, and darkness,
after which he was presented to the Great Circle of Princes . . . the veil being removed by
Thoth" (Greek Hermes, Roman Mercury). The initiate in Egypt was conducted "through
the valley of the shadow of death, and after mounting seven steps [was] presented to the
It will be recalled that the Roman initiates of Mithra had to endure trials, danger,
and darkness and had seven degrees to pass through before they finally beheld the circle
65
of the gods and the great Sun-god, the god of gods (Meyer 214-16). Meyer, quoting from
the Mithras Liturgy in The Greek Magical Papyri, tells us the initiate saw (in this
apanathatismos) "seven virgins . . . with the faces of asps . . . the Fates of heaven . . .
guardians of the four pillars!" (217). Recall the winged Sun-disk on the relief at Boghaz-
keui was supported by four pillars. Meyer continues from the Liturgy: "There also came
forth another seven gods, who have the faces of bulls . . . the, so-called Pole-Lords of
heaven" (218). These are the same seven planetary Dhyanis of Brahmanism (Blavatsky,
Secret 2: 29); the same Seven Pole Lords of the Egyptian stellar cult mentioned earlier;
the same seven lords of Christian Gnosticism (Doresse 275-76); and the same astral
counterparts in Gnostic Judaism and of the Essene mysteries (288). Sumerian King Etana
had to pass through "seven gates of the skies" in his celestial ascent (Warren 139). Each
of the seven degrees of Roman Mithraism was under the rule of one of the seven planets,
and the mithrae had portrayals of gates on floor mosaics (see Chapter 2).
The Chaldean system of astral cosmogony had been overlain onto Iranian
Mazdaism in pre-Roman times (Cumont, Mysteries 10). Many Israelites, even after the
"became identified with Seth.... They [the Jews] also liked to assimilate him to Balaam,
who had foretold the Star of Jacob.... They identified him, again, with Ezekiel, and
made him a disciple of Abraham" (Doresse 287). There was syncretism between the
Iranian and Jewish cults (Bivar 267) and again with the Christian Gnostics. In the most
ancient Jewish mysticism the soul of the seer was "uplifted through the celestial spheres,
which were guarded by the Archons," of which there were seven. (Doresse 290).
66
The Essenes of Qumran absorbed the same occult information from the
Hellenistic Pythagoreans (Doresse 296), whose "seven invisible yet solid concentric
the" Sumerians (Warren 139-40). In the Bible of the Roman Church, Saint John, speaking
while "in the spirit" (apanathatismos) spoke of the seven powers before the Throne
(Apoc. 1.4,9) {Holy Bible 325), the Merkaba of the Egyptian Gnostics (Doresse 290).
Cumont informs us that the Mazdean Magi in early times had "penetrated to the
11) (recall the Urartian depiction of Inanna-Zarpanit as bull-lady). Before this time
Mazdean Ahura Mazda had already been conflated with the Chaldean god Bel, Anahita
with Ishtar, and Mithra with Babylonian Shamash (10). Armenia became thoroughly
Mazdean, and it was from Syria, Anatolia, and Armenia that hordes of immigrants
flooded the West in Roman times (all called Syrians by the Romans). Was it any new
There is a common belief among most scholars that Zoroaster rejected the old
religion of Iran and introduced a basically new one. This has been conclusively proven as
untrue. Zoroastrian scholar Mary Boyce states: "Doctrinal fidelity in the cult of Mithra
can . . . be demonstrated over a period of at least 2,500 years." She goes on to say that
"Zoroaster held to the basic theology of the old Iranian religion, with all its yazatas, and .
.. his reform consisted largely in reinterpreting its beliefs at a nobler and subtler spiritual
level... " (34). Comparably, in the Roman world as well, the concept oitapatria meant
to revere tradition. In the words of Porphyry the "chief fruit of piety" was "to honor the
divinity according to one's ancestral custom," and Plutarch's father asserted "The
It is interesting to note that these same "Syrians" in the third century clung to
Arjomand 245; Robertson 334; Tighe 28). Curiously, the first nation to convert to
Christianity was Armenia, the very nation that was so thoroughly Mithraic (Cumont,
Mysteries 16; Russell 77). Arnobius speaks of a man named Zostrian as the grandfather
of "Zoroaster the Armenian" (qtd. in Doresse 156). From ancient Mazdaism to the
religion of Christ, from Inanna-Sarpanit to the Virgin Mary, the Armenians and the
Sarmatians—a mixture of Iranian peoples from the steppe, five thousand of whom
correlate with how quickly the "new" faith spread in the East. The Apostle Thomas
evangelized in what are today Afghanistan, Pakistan, and southern India before his
martyrdom in AD 68. There is speculation that these early missionaries may have been
Gnostic or Jewish Christian sects. The Church "continued to grow and spread, and by 310
its 'catholicos' (later 'patriarch') was the bishop of Ctesiphon, the Persian capital" (Tighe
28). In Armenia, Mithra was held to be one and the same person with Christ in the fourth,
mithraeum) (Bivar 266), evidencing presence of Iranian religion there at that early date.
Doresse relates that "ancient prophecies preserved by the remaining devotees of the
Egyptian cults had foretold . . . the manifestations of this sign [the cross] would mark the
advent of a new religion: thus many of the Alexandrian worshippers of Serapis became
converts to the new faith [Christianity]," and the Christians there adopted the crux ansata
(the ancient hieroglyphic symbol of eternal life), "which had the advantage of having
significantly, representing the gods of the four quarters or cardinal points, holding up the
canopy of heaven. The Indians had the four Deva Rajas, Kings of air, fire, water, and
earth. Ezekiel described the four great cherubim, and Apocalypse has four great beasts in
the midst of the throne, with the faces of a lion, a bull, a man, and an eagle (Leadbeater
21). Sun-disks on the Boghaz-keui monument are supported by four columns. Brahma is
In the Hellenistic world the Greeks assimilated the gods of Egypt to their own,
with Zeus becoming Zeus-Amon; Demeter conflated with Isis, and Osiris to Dionysus
(Vernant, Greeks 268). Just as Egypt had in the Osirian mysteries, a ritual of death and
resurrection, so in Greece the Orphic mysteries had its suffering and dying Dionysus
(274). In the Orphic cult individual salvation was by way of a purification of the soul,
beyond ritual, to a way of life. The primary god of Orphism was Apollo Kathartes (the
purifier). The purified soul could then return to the original divine state (275). On the
69
Nimrud Dag relief of Commagene Mithra is called Apollo-Mithras-Helios-Hermes in the
foundation text of the hierothesion of Antiochus I (Beck, Mysteries 124; Clauss 6-7).
In Roman Mithraism initiates were admonished by the Pater to live a noble and
moral life, and the red boots they wore (also worn by Christian bishops) symbolized the
spiritual warfare in which they were engaged (Robertson 331). How does this moral
astral cosmogony, and further still, how does it relate to the Imperial hierarchy and the
office of Emperor? The interlocking connections become clear as the veil is lifted further.
The political and sociological connections among ancient nations of the Eastern
Mediterranean have been profusely demonstrated thus far, as has the syncretism of the
various deities. Textual evidence also illustrates the fact that the Greco-Roman world in
which Mithraism expanded had its basis in the ancient Near East. Assyrian king
Assurnasirpal had reached the Mediterranean, and by 700 BC Cyprus was in Assyrian
hands (Burkert, Babylon 7). The Persians believed Perseus to be an Assyrian, who
became Greek, and the progenitors of his mother Danae (his father was Zeus) to be from
The Qumran Essene texts speak of a belief in two spirits, good and evil, light and
dark (Allegro 139) in an apparent adoption of Zoroastrian dualism. The Book of Daniel
in the Bible, compiled in its current form around the time Antiochus Epiphanes forbade
Jewish ritual worship, has Zoroastrian images of world ages and the end of time
(Kriwaczek 161). Mazdaean ideas of angels, heaven, and the concept of an afterlife
infiltrated Judaism from Mazdaism (170). Yet interestingly, the so-called Zoroastrian
ideas are quite "Chaldean" (hence Sumerian). Scholars have no evidence that Cyrus was
baked clay cylinder now in the British Museum an inscription gives us the testimony in
Cyrus' own words: "Marduk, the great god, induced the magnanimous inhabitants of
Babylon to love me, and I daily endeavor to worship him . . . " (183).
Christians and Muslims invoke the intercession of saints, and in litanies of the
Latin and Greek Churches the Holy Mother is importuned under her many names and
titles (i.e. Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Mystical Rose). Queen Isis, who claimed to
be founder of all the mysteries, was, after Zeus, the "most truly polyonymous of all the
gods in antiquity . . . " (MacMullen 90). Mithra too was known under many co-names. He
was conflated with Apollo, and Dio Chrysostom tells us "some people say Apollo, Helios
and Dionysus are all one . . . " (qtd. in Mac Mullen 86). Dionysus was Osiris in Egypt,
and Apollo was originally Orpheus (both had as their symbol the lyre) (Leadbeater 83).
Similar elements can be seen throughout the various cults, as for example, in the
Osirian and Eleusinian mysteries. Isis lost her husband and brother Osiris due to the
treachery of Set and searched the earth, lamenting as she went (Meyer 160-65). In the
mysteries of Eleusis, Demeter lost her daughter (Kore) and searched the earth for her,
lamenting and weeping. Demeter was a grain goddess, and in the Mithraic mysteries the
sacrificial bull sprouted grain from his tail. The black Apis Bull kept at Heliopolis was
sacred to Osiris (168), and in the Bacchic mysteries Dionysus (Bacchus) was "Son of the
Bull" (169). In the Isis Aretalogy Isis was revealed as a lawgiver (173), and one of the
71
titles of Demeter was Thesmophoros (lawgiver) (172). Mithra was upholder of laws, and
Shamash (his syncretic equal) was "dispenser of justice and protector of the existing
order . . . " (Fischer 131; Young 132). There was also the "extensive influence Egyptian
accept the deities of the Egyptians, as their hosts had been in identifying their own gods
Mithra, a Sun-god, was son and sometimes lover of the Great Mother Goddess or
Hathor was mother of the young Sun-god Horus (Churchward 82). Modern scholars
believe the iconography of the Mithraic tauroctony celebrates the solstices and
equinoxes. In ancient Sumerian Ur the akiti festivals marked the same events (Fischer
129). Mithra, as Sun-god, was a mediator between heaven and earth. "Assyrians and
Babylonians saw a connection between the sun, which maintains order within creation,
and the earthly social order" (132). "The two pillars of the gateway of the House of Ptah
are Horus and Set" in Memphis (Churchward 85), Shamash had two attendants at the
Gateway of the Heavens (Warren 142), and Mithra had the Dadophori.
Most scholars believe the bull's blood on the Mithraic tauroctony was collected in
the krater. The early Christians ate lamb on Easter and collected the blood in a cup, and
Firmicus relates that in Egypt the ritual ram slain for Amon was mourned, and that in
Crete a bull was destroyed to symbolize the ruin of Dionysus (Robertson 320).
72
Lion-Bull Combat Motif
An ironclad rule among scribes of the ancient Near Eastern kingdoms was to
adhere to tradition and preserve the ways of the past. Scribes in Persia, Akkad,
Babylonia, and even Anatolia continued to use "Sumerograms" and wrote in the old
cuneiform thousands of years after the language of Sumerian had ceased to be the spoken
language, and Syria was the "link in the transmission of cuneiform from Mesopotamia to
Preoccupation with the past was significant in liturgical texts that continued in the
old tradition. There was an amazing continuity in iconography as well, from the fourth
millennium BC through Sasanian times (Gunter 13), as can be seen in the cultic images
of Indian mother goddess Durga ("slayer of the buffalo [bull] demon," and seated
between lions, an obvious descendent of Inanna-Ishtar) (Carter 314); the man-bulls and
lion-headed eagles from Ebla (2400 BC); the lion-headed winged fish from Mari; and the
Bulls were long ritualized by all the ancient kingdoms of the Near East. At 9,500
year old Catal Hiiyiik bull horns were embedded in the walls (Baiter 1-2; Shipman 278).
Sumerian king Gilgamesh slew the Bull of Heaven and "dedicated the horns . . . to
Shamash [the sun-god]" (Burkert, Babylon 43; Langdon 145). Indian Mitra slew the god
Soma (symbolically identified with the bull) (Lincoln 203). Goddess Durga rides a bull
on a Sasanian (Persian) rhyton, Egypt had its Apis Bull, and Heracles fought the Cretan
Bull (see Figures 79-81). It appears the image on the Mithraic tauroctony has very
ancient precursors all over Egypt, the eastern Mediterranean, and the ancient Near East.
73
^"^Mj f^^fflB
v\ i
beneath winged-disk, 17 Bull, Tampa Museum of Art, bull slayer, Sasanian silver
Feb. 2009 <http:// Florida. Catalog: Tampa 86.85. rhyton, Cleveland Museum
Syrian Haddad (see Figure 82) is Anatolian Tarhunna and Adad of Sumeria; and
"in Akkadian texts Adad is a bull" (Lambert 435-36). The huge lamassu from Assyria
(see Figure 83) are well known even to the general public, and the legend of Gilgamesh
takes the motif of man-bull combat back to the third millennium BC (see Figure 84).
Fig. 82. Syrian Hadad. Fig. 83. Lamassu, Human Headed Fig. 84. Gilgamesh and the Bull,
(Sumerian Adad), storm Winged Bull, Neo-Assyrian, terracotta relief, c.2250-1900 BC,
god, on a bull, Phoenician, Ashurnasirpal II, 883-859 BC, Musee Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire,
c.2500-1000 BC, stele, 14 Dec. Nimrud (Kahlu), 7 Dec. 2008 Brussels, 19 Feb, 2009 <http://
religion.E.htm>.
74
In the second millennium BC Adad and Shamash were worshipped together as
"givers of oracles," and Shamash is "Marduk of Justice." Shamash is another title of the
great God Marduk, called "the sun god of the gods" (Lambert 439). Apparently the name
of one god could be applied to signify his attributes or powers held within another god.
This must be kept in mind when trying to understanding the hierarchy and the changing
dominance of one god over another and will be examined more closely in a later part of
periods and into the Roman period. A Roman era Celtic relic from Colonia Ulpia Traiani
depicts the god Tarvustrignarus slaying a bull. The animal at the bottom of the icon
seems to resemble one made 10,000 years earlier on a pillar at Gobekli Tepe (see Figures
85 and 86), and Mithraic astral symbology had its precursors (see figure 87) ages earlier.
Figs. 85. and 86. Celtic Smertrius-Herakles Slaying a Bull, Fig. 87. Sumerian Gods and Astral
"Gundestrup Cauldron," Colonia Ulpia Traiani (Anteon, Germany), Symbols, cylinder seal, c. 3000-
1st C. BC, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 26 Dec. 1000 BC, Sumerian Gods, ed. Ellie
www.smithsonian.com/history-archaeology/gbekli-tepe.html>. sumergods.html>.
75
Lunar and Solar Deities and Symbols
attempting to trace the history of the Sun-gods. Lion-headed eagles on the silver vase of
Entemena of Lagash (Sumerian) symbolize the Sun (Hartner 11), at times specifically
at its maximum power as the summer Sun, at other times as the Sun in general. Stars,
rosettes, crosses, lions, bulls, and the tree of life remain constant as Near Eastern
iconographical motifs from the oldest Mesopotamian times (fourth millennium BC) into
Sasanian times (second to sixth centuries AD) (see Figures 88-90) (13-14).
Pill
m
klj /
"^252n
Fig. 88. Mithra Born From a Tree, Figs. 89. and 90. Urartian Helmet with Tree of Life, 760-743 BC,
from Manfred Clauss, The Roman Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, 1 Jan. 2009 <http://
Mysteries. (New York: Routledge, Pectoral, Iran, 800-500 BC, Tree of Life in center, Smithsonian
The Mithraic monuments all contained sacred trees, and with Osiris, Dionysus,
and Adonis, the gods themselves were represented either as reborn or placed within a tree
(Robertson 319), as was Mithra (Clauss 71). As the Mysteries took form in each
succeeding nation, the symbology remained basically consistent, though with regional
hovering above the Tree of Life (see Figure 91) or near the god—or a Sun disk,
sometimes circled by a serpent. Radiate diadems or body rays also frequently adorn the
Fig. 91. Tree of Life with winged- Fig. 92. Goddess Anahita and Fig. 93. Sumerian Sun-god
disk, Sumerian, 10 Jan. 2009 <http:// Sun-god Mithra rising from Utu (Babylonian Shamash),
www.piney.com/sun-lion.gif> sumergods.html>.
A cylinder from Urartu has a sacred tree and winged Sun disk in a "style closely
related to the Neo-Assyrian of the eighth or seventh centuries B.C."(Moorey 37). Recall
Sun-god are "derived from . . . Akkadian prototypes" (Porada 573). The "eagle was an
attribute of the majority of solar and supreme deities, as it was of the supreme Indo-
European deity, the religious traditions of the Sarmatians and the Iranian tribes of Central
Asia being very close." The Vedic Mitra-Varuna was conflated with Ahura Mazda to
gods, Figure 95 portrays a relief of the Sun-god Ashur, supreme deity of Assyria, riding
in a winged-disk. An Urartian male god from the ninth century BC rides a bull and is
within a winged disk (or he has wings) in Figure 96. Centuries later, the Sun-god Apollo
rides in a winged-tripod, which serves as the same solar symbol (see Figure 94).
Fig. 94. Apollo Riding a Winged Fig. 95. Sun-God Ashur, supreme Fig. 96. Urartian Bronze Relief,
Tripod (which represents the Sun), deity of Assyria, in a winged- a male god on a bull, 824-810
Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, disk, one of whose epithets was BC, 22 Feb. 2008 <http://
Vatican City, Cat. No. Vatican "Bull of Heaven," 14 Feb. 2009 www.rubens.anu.edu.au/raid4/
/www.theo.com/01ympios/Apollo/html>. archaeology/urartu>.
The Hittite iconography was the same, containing elements of the Egyptian and
the Babylonian (Ward 17-19). One Hittite depiction has Zarpanit-Ishtar inside the
winged-disk, expanded into a canopy of sorts, with the goddess standing on a bull (24).
Egyptian Tree of Life) resting on the back of a bull (25). These images were shown
previously (see Figures 74 and 75) in the section discussing the syncretism of the mother
78
goddess through the various cultures and periods, but they hold relevance here as
winged-ladder. Winged-disks, bulls, lions, trees of life, Sun-gods, and Sun-kings are all
iconography she appears inside the Sun-disk "canopy" (reference Figure 74 shown
previously). Her symbol is the lion, typically a Sun symbol. Mithra was sometimes
the Moon, the female principle, and fecundity, is worshipped concomitantly with Mithra-
Apollo-Helios-Zeus-RA, the male and solar principle, who releases the blood or seed of
the sacred bull to allow the renewal of nature to take place. In a sense the god sacrifices
Eastern Rite and Western Latin) art, ancient and modern, Christ Pantocrator (Universal
Ruler) rides within a winged-disk, as portrayed in numerous old cathedral domes all over
Europe and Russia (see Figures 97 and 98). Figure 99 shows Christ Pantocrator riding in
an angel-winged-disk hovering over the tomb of Pope Pius XI in the Vatican. On two
Figs. 97. - 99. Christ Pantocrator in the Dome of Santa Maria delPAmmiraglio, Palermo, 12 C. Byzantine
in Norman and Arab style, photo by Xerones, 9 Feb. 2006,24 Aug. 2009 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/
Xerones/97521742>. Christ Pantocrator in the Dome of the Cathedral of Sainte Sophie in Kiev, Ukraine,
1037, Australian EJournal of Theology. Feb 2005: Issue 4. 24 Aug. 2009 <http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/
Angels, above the Tomb of Pius XI (1922-1939), grotto under St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, photo by Roma
In a beautiful carryover from the ancient usages (recall the depiction of Inanna
from Hittite Yazilikaya in Figure 74), a golden papal medallion features Pope Pius IX
enthroned within a winged canopy (see Figure 100). The inscription is from Joel.2.23
from the Latin Vulgate, translated in the Rheims Douay Catholic Bible as "exult and
rejoice in the Lord your God! He hath given you a teacher of justice" {Holy Bible 1049).
Fig. 100. Gold Medallion of Pius IX Enthroned Under a Winged-Canopy, 1877, Papal Claims to Authority.
enforcer of justice (Porada 573). The pope as Vicari Christi dispenses his (Christ's)
justice. On the center of the sarcophagus that was shown in Figure 99 is a six-spoked
disk. The same symbol will be seen over the throne of Utu/Shamash later in this chapter
in the section which discusses the supremacy of the Sun-god (see page 83).
In Babylonian inscriptions the god Enki is "Bull, king," and "lord of determining
fates" (Albright 199). A Sumerian tablet calls Dungi, a king of Ur, divine, and "Enlil on
earth," but "he is also Ninlil" (cohort of Enlil). He is the "bull of life and . . . the great
serpent and "he who brings justice." In addition he is called a lion, an ox, a shepherd, and
a steward (Peters 140). Selene (Luna) wears the lunar crescent but also wears the radiate
diadem, as does Helios (Sol). Plutarch connects the Sun-god Osiris to the Moon-goddess
Isis and implies their physical union by referring to a festival called "The Entry of Osiris
into the Moon," and figures from Saqqara which wear lunar discs with ibis heads (the
Osiris 153-58).Thoth was a Moon-god. Again, one god takes on an aspect of or absorbs
another.
Who is guiding the chariots of the gods on the Parthenon frieze? It is Hermes (Mercury,
Thoth, Mithra) in his role as psychopompos (leader of the dead into the eternal realm).
Hermes "acts as marshal to Eos, another divinity of the light" as well, "because his
81
golden wand had the double power of giving sleep to mortals and of awakening them"
(Savignoni 270-72). Again, this shows the complementary roles of Sun and Moon gods.
The Divine Androgen is the god in both male and female attributes, Sun and
Moon, seed and fecundity. The Tree of Life—the microcosm of man under the winged-
disk, the macrocosm of the universe—and the divine Hermes (Thoth) Psychopompos,
who leads mortals into the immortal realm, are indeed a summary of the Mysteries, a
glimpse into the more recondite profundity. The "Macrocosmic tree is the Serpent of
Eternity and of absolute wisdom . . . " and "those who dwell in the . . . branches are the
Serpents of manifested Wisdom." The "'tree' is man himself" (Blavatsky, Secret 2: 98).
Now the connections between Mesopotamia and Rome will be bridged again.
In the first century AD Sarmatians flooded into the Bosporus, especially into the
city of Tanais, radically changing the region (Ustinova 159). A title of the supreme god,
called Tanais by the Sarmatians, was Theos Hypsistos (Roman Sancta Tutela, Syrian
Baal, and Palmyran Baalshamin as well), whom scholars link to the cult of Cybele, the
mother goddess (173). Iamblichus uses the word "mysteries" to refer to the local festival
in honor of Tanais, Aphrodite, and Pharsiris. The Tanais cult was exclusively male,
included the drinking oiHaoma (Soma) at major rituals (176), was linked to the fire cult,
was "extremely meticulous in moral issues," and practiced initiation. Achaemenid Persia
maintained male cults along the same lines (177). Here is a direct link to the Mithraic cult
of Rome, as Rome ruled the Bosporus, and identical elements were found in Roman
Mithraism.
82
The Supremacy of the Sun-God.
The reigning god took the aspects of other gods, in essence absorbing them. Burkert
illustrates this when he tells us Zeus "swallowed the phallus o f Uranus (as heaven, his
phallus was the Sun). In a Hittite text Kumarbi swallowed the phallus of Anu (Heaven)
and became pregnant with the weather-god, and Zeus then carried " . . . all the other gods,
in himself." In Orphic theogony Zeus swallowed Phanes (Babylon 90-94) (keep this in
mind when reading chapter 6). Perhaps this explains why obviously phallic-form obelisks
It has previously been shown that Zeus was conflated with Bel, who was Marduk
of Babylon, the Merodach of the Bible (Jer.50. 2) (Holy Bible 936), who "gradually
succeeded to the headship of the planetary pantheon," as the power of Babylon became
supreme (Warren 141). Recalling that the Egyptian religion "is related to the Sumerian"
(Langdon 135), it becomes clear that the currently reigning Sun-god of Egypt—be it RA
or Atum or Aten—would include the attributes of the other gods as well, as was seen
above in the case of Osiris displaying the attributes of Thoth. Egypt and Sumer had
contact with each other from the earliest times (139-41), and the cults were similar.
The reigning god at any particular time can be ascertained by the theophoric name
Nabu in Nebuchadnezzar, for example. At times the reigning god was a Sun-god and at
times a Moon-god, as when Naram-Sin reigned in Sumeria under the Moon-god Sin
(Nannar). The Moon-god Sin rose to replace the Sun-god Utu-Shamash as the reigning
deity, and Naram-Sin (the king) then assumed the role of the Sun-god (Fischer 125). As
83
has been shown, Marduk (the greatest Sun-god) had pre-empted or absorbed within
himself the attributes of the other gods—including the old Sumerian Sun-god Utu
(Babylonian Shamash) (see Figure 102)—when he assumed the head of the pantheon
(Lambert, Trees 437). He took the identity of the primordial creator deity who defeated
Tiamat (see Figure 101). He also spared antediluvian Sippar, "the eternal city," where
Xisouthros buried all the writings to save them from the flood (Woods 31)—an example
of Marduk again preempting Shamash, the "lord of Sippar" (25) and preserver "of law
and justice" (Porada 573). As the names (but not the primary attributes) of the deities
changed with the changing times and cultures, Zeus, as a later type of the prime male
god, in turn, slays Typhon, the type of Tiamat (see Figure 103).
Fig. 101. Relief from Ninurta Temple Fig. 102. Utu-Shamash in his Fig. 103. Zeus killing Typhon,
of Ashurnasirpal II, 883-859 BC. throne room, British Museum. black on red vase, Greek,
A.H. Layard, Monuments of Nineveh. London, Sumerian, 7 Dec.2008 30 Aug. 2008 <http://
who invests the king with his royal office. Plutarch says the rule of Artaxerxes II was
84
inaugurated with a ritual at "a sanctuary of a warlike goddess whom one might conjecture
to be Athene" (qtd. in Arjomand 247). This was the Avestan yazata Harahvaiti "known
by her cult-epithets, Aredvi Sura Anahita," and she invested the king "alongside Ahura
Mazda and Mithra." Centuries later Sasanian king Ardashir was "invested by Anahita" as
"King of Kings" (248). Anahita was Mesopotamian Nana (affiliated with the Sun and
Moon) (Azarpay 539) and the pre-Zoroastrian Iranian Armaiti, cohort of the sky-god
Ahura (later considered his daughter) (540). As recounted earlier, Nana was the chief
goddess of Dura-Europos (in Syria) where the Romans had a large military base and
mithrae where she was worshipped with Mithra. Her images stood in the Roman temples
there alongside Aphrodite, Victory, and Fortuna suggesting "she combined the functions
of all those Graeco-Roman divinities" (537). In India she appeared as goddess Durga and
All gods were subordinate to Ahura Mazda (Boyce 20), who was "the ultimate
ruler of men's destiny," with Mithra alongside him as judge and upholder of oaths (23),
as was Shamash when he witnessed the Old-Assyrian treaty at Kultepe (along with Sin
and goddess Kubabat) (Donbaz 64-65). The winged solar-disk of the Near East is of
Egyptian origin (Lambert, Trees 438; Goldman 327). Recalling that the disk represented
Shamash and then Ashur, and that later Marduk appropriated the attributes of Shamash
and the other gods {Trees 439), it then becomes clear that the Sun-disk was preeminently
a later symbol of Marduk of Babylon, the Bull (448). Baal, Teshub, and Nabu (the son of
latter evolved from the lion motif (and associated with sacred trees and as defenders of
Sun-kings) (Goldman326-27). Pharaoh wore the Ureaus, and RA bore the Sun-disk on his
head. The winged-disk appeared on the royal seal of Mitanni (Merrillees 49). A statuette
from Tel Brak (Syria 2200 BC) depicts a god as a human-headed bull (Miller 126).
Urartian cylinders bear winged-disks and sacred trees (Moorey 37), and in the Uruk
period (3000-2340 BC) rosettes were symbols of Inanna (Porada 579). In the final battle
mankind (Russell 80). We recall the world ages of the Iranian Bundahisn, of the Book of
Daniel, of Brahmanic teachings, and of Egypt as the link with Rome is made.
Greco-Roman Sun-Gods
The mantle of world rulership passed from Persia to the Greeks, and Alexander—
who considered himself the literal son of RA (supreme Sun-god of Egypt)—became the
new Sun-king as the next world-age began (see Figure 106) (Burkert, Babylon 110).
Akhenaton and declared himself Son of the Sun, having a relationship with the Aton (the
sole god) unique to himself (see Figure 105). Aton was really synonymous with the
oldest Sun-god, RA, whose abode was the sacred city of On or Anu, which the Greeks
later called Heliopolis (City of the Sun) (Devi 17, 20). Centuries later, in Rome, Emperor
god, then reigning as the supreme Sun-god or Sol Invictus (see Figure 104).
86
u^wtrHg<£gtfaft*T>*iVi
Fig. 104. Bronze Bust of Figs. 105. and 106. Amenhotep IV, Son of the Sun, and Queen Nefertiti
'Commodus Mithras.'Salting making offerings to Aton, "Development of the Cult of Aton under
Collection, Victoria and Albert Amenhotep IV," p. 88, 12 Feb. 2009 <http://www.sacred-texts.com/
Easdaile, "The Commodus- Louvre, Photo by Giraudon; rpt. in "Gods in Uniform" by Ernst H.
subsumed the aspects of the other gods within himself (Shotwell 313). He became Moon
god and fertility god but supremely the Sun-god. Prior to this, Sin, the Moon-god, had
dominated Babylon (316). "The moon-god gained ascendency in Babylon in the days of
the first Semitic kingdom. Dominating the religion, it dominated the cosmology" and
only later did the "victorious sun" gain "his supreme place in Mesopotamia..." (316).
As the Sun-god gained ascendency so did a new calendar worked out by the priests to
replace the increasingly inaccurate lunar one that had been used since at least 3000 BC
(317; Sarton and Carmody 70). This shows a constant revolving dominance of Sun-gods
87
and Moon-gods through the ages as imperial kings rose to power. Even when a Moon-
god and his king were supreme the king would "[assume] the role of the sun-god," as did
The akiti festival in ancient Ur celebrated the creation, and under Marduk the
New Year festival (the akiti celebration marking the Spring Equinox) was the grandest of
ceremonies, in which Marduk (the Bull Sun-god) preempted the original creator in the
ritual (Smith 139).The gods conferred authority on the kings of their choice (Cooper 40).
World-ruling gods decided what kings could rule, as when Amen gave Egypt to the kings
of Cush, or Marduk ordered Cyrus to take Babylon (141). As was shown earlier, Mithraic
scholars think the bull represents the constellation Taurus, a blood sacrifice, or a lunar
symbol. Considering Figures 107 and 108 in combination with the fact heretofore shown
that the great gods are "bulls," it would seem that the bull is representative also of all the
gods—as incarnate representative of heaven. In this light, it might explain why only other
bulls—and only perfect ones—were sacrificed to the Apis Bull of Egypt, and why even
the Atlanteans (as relates Plato in Kritias) sacrificed a bull (Cumont, St. George 67).
Figs. 107. and 108. Statuettes of Celestial Bull, bodies adorned with star-shaped rosettes and with symbols
of heavenly bodies, from Willy Hartner, "The Earliest History of the Constellations in the Near East and
the Motif of the Lion-Bull Combat," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24 (1965): plates 11 and 12.
88
The Mithraic tauroctony has been thus proven to represent something more far-reaching
than the scholars suspect. The divine bull was created by Ahura Mazda at the beginning
says the Mithraic faith (Frothingham 55); yet, this only hints at the deeper occult
meaning.
Armenia worshipped Nero (56-68 AD) as "an emanation of Mithra himself (Cumont,
Mysteries 85-6). Commodus (AD 180-192) became a Pater in the Mithra Cult, Aurelian
(270-75) "instituted the official cult of Sol Invictus" (Unconquerable Sun), and "the last
pagan that occupied the throne of the Caesars, Julian the Apostate," was ardently devoted
to Mithra (87-89). "The deification of the Roman emperor . . . was essentially an Oriental
concept" (Case 68). Millennia earlier Naram-Sin of Akkad had declared himself a Sun-
god. Pharaohs were the sons of RA, incarnations of the Sun (Cumont, Mysteries 92).
In Italy the Roman emperor entered the Taurobolium, where the blood of the
sacrificed bull drenched his body. In Britannia the emperors themselves joined the
Sarmatian conscripts in the mithrae along Hadrian's Wall. Even earlier, in official
artworks, the Caesars (as Pontifex Maximus) wore the radiate diadem of the Sun-god, as
illustrated in a bronze image of Emperor Claudius from the mid-first century (see Figure
110). The mystai of the Leo degree roared in their lion masks and carried the "counterfeit
heads of... soldiers and of Persians" (Cumont, Mysteries 152), as did the men of Assyria
a thousand years earlier (see Figure 109) (Pythian-Adams 57; Collon 101).
89
-X* t
1 * *- -»„3T
is»
Fig. 109. Lion-Headed Cloaks and Heads, Fig. 110. Julio Claudian Princeps, Roman bronze
relief, Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 imago clipeata of the Emperor Claudius (r.AD 41-54)
BC), Nimrud, Iraq, from Dominique Collon wearing a radiate crown, flanked by the symbols
"Dance in Ancient Mesopotamia," Near of the office of Pontifex Maximus, found at Derventio,
Eastern Archaeology 66 (2003): 101. near Stanford Bridge, Yorkshire, England, 1991, now
The continuity was complete. The Roman Mithraic cult was no isolated anomaly
or unconnected newly-born ritual but indeed as old as civilized man. They practiced a
ritualized dramatization of the sacred Mysteries in dim torch-lit caves, as had the priests
of ancient Mesopotamia in the seven-tiered ziggurats and the initiates of mystic Egypt in
the darkened subterranean vaults of that sand-swept land at the dawn of human history.
Christ became the successor Sun-god to Mithra and the Roman emperors, and was
"repeatedly represented with the imperial purple chlamys around his shoulders" as is
depicted in the tomb of Clodius Hermes (c. AD 230). The term "Christus Imperator had
become relatively common . . . and the victorious cross . . . was . . . decorated with the
imperial paludamentum" (Kantorowicz 384). The hierarchy of the Roman Empire lives
90
on in type in the hierarchy of the Roman Church with Christ replacing Mithra-Helios-
which made the Vatican a separate state, shows Saint Peter holding the keys to the gates
of heaven. Earlier, the solar lion-headed god of Mithraism had held the key to the
heavenly celestial spheres to which the mystai of the Mysteries of Mithra had aspired
long before the Roman Church assumed power. The medallion also has a globe with
Vatican City (Citta del Vaticand) and Roma as capital of the world, as ancient Rome was
A m mki
1 ^v^*Hlf'
U llffl^H-MH
Fig. 111. Pius XI medallion struck to commemorate the 1929 Fig. 112. Christ in Roman imperial
Lateran Treaty, with Saint Peter on the globe of the world, robes with scepter of power and
holding the keys of authority; Roma shown as capital of the solar disk (aureole) behind, 12 Feb.
www.biblelight.net/claims.htm>. christ>.
91
CHAPTER 6
The mysterious lion-headed god that was part of the iconography in Roman-era
mithrae is interpreted very differently by the various major Mithraic scholars. In this
chapter the primary opinions of these scholars will be given. Their views will be followed
embodiment in him of the powers of all the gods" {Mysteries 105). He declared this
representation from the Mazdean pantheon was at the "pinnacle of the divine hierarchy"
(107). Cumont considered the leontocephalous to be a creation of the Roman Mithra cult,
based on Mazdean and possibly Assyrian artistic antecedents, but took it no further.
Ulansey considers the leontocephalous a remake of the Gorgon that Perseus slew,
thus complementing his theory that Roman Mithraism began in Tarsus, whose deity was
Angera he cites a "series of six marble columns, upon" which "alternatively lions' and
Gorgons' heads are represented" (Origins 30-33). And, he believes the lion-headed god
Maarten Vermassen, Ulansey considers the six coils of the snake around the body of the
god (see Figure 113) to "indicate the course of the sun through the zodiac," and
concludes: "The lion-headed god, therefore, embodies . . . the organizing power of the
Clauss sees the leontocephalous as a male deity and mentions a statue from
Arelate/Aries with the "signs of the zodiac denoting Spring, Summer, Autumn and
Winter" appearing on the body with the entwined serpent (see Figure 115) (164). He says
the god was called "Aion, whom we know under his Greek name in Egypt, the god of
Time, born on . . . 6 January, considered the birth date of Christ before Mithra's birthdate
with "lineaments of Serapis, Apollo, Jupiter, Pluto, Aesculapius, Pan and other divine
beings . . . " (165) and identifies the relief called Phanes by Ulansey as the "god of Time"
(as does Cumont), noting the cosmic egg from which he emerges (see Figure 114) (166-
67).
93
Fig. 113. Lion-Headed God Fig. 114. The Orphic God Phanes, Fig. 115. Arelate/Aries: Fragmentary
on globe with crossed (CIMRM 695): rpt. in David Lion-Head with Signs of the Zodiac,
circles, (CIMRM 543); rpt. in Ulansey, Origins of the Mithraic from Manfred Clauss. The Roman
David Ulansey, Origins of the Mysteries (New York: Oxford Cult of Mithras: The God and His
Mithraic Mysteries (New York: UP, 1989) 121. Mysteries (New York: Routledge,
holds for the "eight celestial gates, the ways into the realm of fire" (29). Beck states that
"one might point to certain Egyptian (or Egyptianizing) elements which appear to have
entered Mithraic ideology, most notably in the person of their lion-headed god"
{Mysteries 127). He elsewhere states that a possible identity for the god (as proposed by
I. F. Legge in 1912) is Ahriman, calling it "an outrageous choice were it not that the
makes it more than a possibility that the... god was Ahriman" {Iranian 15).
Ward draws attention to "grotesque winged figures with the head of a lion or a
dog . . . guarding the entrance.. ."at Boghaz-keui (11). Doresse relates that the Egyptian
god Khnum was lion-headed with the body of a snake (93). Ialdabaoth was the evil god
94
that seduced Eve and begat the unjust Cain with the face of a cat (207). Besides Osiris,
Maahes, the lion-faced Egyptian god of Leontopolis, was also compared to Ialdabaoth,
the demiurgos of the Gnostics. In the hands of this god "lies the celestial fate of eternal
nature . . . " (274). Maahes was protector of the priests of Amon, was son of RA and Bast
or "Sekhmet, the lioness war goddess," and "fought the serpent Apep during RA's daily
night voyage." He was "the personification of the summer heat" and "punished those who
violated Ma'at" (universal order of truth and right). He wore the Sun-disk and uraeus and
bore the epithets "Initiator" and "Lord of Slaughter" (Ancient Egypt Online).
There are definitely Egyptian elements in the leontocephalous, and now it shall be
shown that there very well may have been, coeval with Maahes, Sumerian antecedents to
the mysterious god in the person of the deity Nergal and the Assyrian demon Pazuzu. In
Figure 116 below is a modern recreation of the lion-faced Egyptian war god Maahes
aggressively posed with sword in hand. The next image (see Figure 117) has two
Assyrian deities shown in relief, one of which has the head of a lion and also carries a
dagger or short sword, indicating that he too is probably a war god. Inside the ancient
Shrine of Ptah at the Egyptian site of Karnak stands, to this day, the sculpture of
Sekhmet, the fierce lioness-headed goddess of war (see Figure 118). The similarity in the
Assyrian and the Egyptian figures cannot be overlooked, nor can the similarities between
them and the leontocephalous. Do any epigraphicai or textual references about the deities
under discussion help make a connection or demonstrate syncretism? The answer is yes.
95
3 -1 '
„ • — -, -*•
Fig. 116. Maahes, Egyptian Fig. 117. Two Assyrian gods, one lion- Fig. 118. Sekhmet, lioness
God of War, modern depiction, headed, from Donald A. MacKenzie, Egyptian goddess of war, in
27 Jan. 2009 <http:// "Myths of Babylonia and Assyria," the Shrine of Ptah, Karnak,
files/16653/16653-h/16653-h.htm>. tourl4.html>.
The Akkadian word melammu has been taken to mean "an aureole or divine
nimbus surrounding that which has divine power: gods, demons, temples, and holy
objects," or "a mask that bestows invisibility upon the wearer." Three related terms in
Sumerian are believed to translate to "radiance," "red," and "glowing," all used in
connection with the winged Sun disk and with Nergal. The melammu could be transfered
by the god to the king. When in possession of it Assyrian kings were "overwhelming
enemies and driving them in terror, madness, and flight," the king himself "radiant" while
possessing it. Esarhaddon vaunted, "Nergal, the all-powerful among the gods, bestowed
AshurbanipaPs defeat of an enemy says "the radiance of Ashur and Ishtar overwhelmed
him and he went crazy" (617). Recall that in the Roman mithrae the lion-headed god was
the "staff of Nergal," whereas Hadad and Shamash are "salvation" and "light"
respectively (Millard and Bordreuil 138). Nergal is "the Lord of the eternal city" which
Stephen Langdon equates with Hades (209) (recall that earlier the eternal city was
the god of War and of the Chase," and his wife, Gula, as "the mistress who awakens the
dead." In the Hymn to Nergal the god is called a "windblast" and is "conceived of as
causing a fiery blast over the 'fruitful land'." He "destroys the . . . power of vegetation or
Now are there any demonstrable direct links that may be shown between this
ancient Sumerian war-god Nergal of the fourth millennium BC and the Roman era?
Indeed there are, and Wathiq Al-Salihi provides them for us. At the site of ancient Hatra
(in Iraq) a Nergal shrine has the figure of the god strangely nude, the reason being a
fusion with the god Hercules, "widely worshipped in near eastern cities in the Hellenistic
and Parthian periods," including at Dura-Europos. On tesserae from Palmyra, one side
shows the name Nergal and the other side has the club of Hercules. Hercules was also
and in Armenia Hercules-Verethragna was fused with "Vahagn, a war god, and the killer
Hercules was found at the North Gate of Hatra, carrying a lion skin over the left arm, and
a nearby inscription refers to Nergal as the "chief guardian." The North Gate of the great
97
Assyrian capital, Nineveh, "was known as the Nergal Gate." The cult of Hercules-Nergal
was present at Dura-Europos and Palmyra in the Seleucid and Parthian periods, and a cult
of Nergal continued into the first decades of the Christian era at Spasinou Charax (a rich
A bronze Pazuzu, an Assyrian demon, was found in the Egyptian delta, with a
leonine face, four feathered wings, horns, a scorpion tail, and a serpent's head at the end
of a large phallus. Its legs end in talons, and it holds two spheres (thought to represent
lightning bolts) (Moorey 33-4). Pazuzu has been found at Babylon, at Ur, in Urartu, West
Persia, and at the Palace of Nimrud (some flanked by snakes). With extensive trade and
cultural exchanges at the time, Moorey suggests syncretism with these and the one found
in Egypt. He concludes that "the iconography of Pazuzu appears to derive directly from
the 'lion-headed demon,' often represented in Old Babylonian glyptic . . . " (34-40).
The Sumerian deity Tiamat, slain by the Sun-god Marduk, was a precursor of the
Old Babylonian lion-head demon, who was perhaps a representation of the lion-faced
Nergal, god of war and destruction, who opposed Marduk and tried to destroy him. And,
the Roman Mithraic leontocephalous, it can be argued, was most certainly descended
from the original forms of the leonine solar war-gods—Egyptian Maahes and Sumerian
Nergal. In The Religion of the Kassites Semitic scholars demonstrate that Adar, "the god
god Nusku, who is the destroying "Sun flames." They go on to say: "The lion, under
whose likeness the god Nergal is worshipped, is the symbol of the destructive Sun-
Zeus-Amen-Mithra (Cumont, Mysteries 111). Nergal was Saturn (Shotwell 315), lord of
the underworld, holding the key to the celestial gates. The Paters of Mithra were under
the rule of Saturn and held the keys of initiation which the mystae needed to pass through
the seven degrees, of which the fourth was Leones (the lions). One of the symbols of the
fourth degree was the lightning bolt, which the lion-headed god wore on his chest in
some images. And, it was "in the offering of incense performed by the Lions" that the
"other souls ascend" according to the Roman sacral language (Clauss 135-37). This is
significant, because in the eighth-century BC Assyrian relief (refer back to Figure 109)
some men wear lion masks and others carry human heads in what appears to be a ritual
enactment.
On a Hittite cylinder, now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, next to the seated
goddess Ashara (Inanna-Anahita) two lions standing on their hind legs lift a boat with a
figure inside upwards (reminiscent of the boat of RA). In his analysis of this scene Ward
stated "such lion-headed creatures as we also see on the bronze funerary plate [he is
referring to Figure 121 depicted below] . . . may have something to do with the passage
of the soul" (37-38). That would certainly match what the Roman ritual said about the
function of the Lions of the fourth degree. Could the much older depiction portray the
same initiatic rites practiced in Rome a thousand years later? The evidence continues.
In that fascinating bronze plaque from ancient Chaldea, G. Maspero labels the
lion-headed figure (presiding over a scene which he labels "the underworld") as Nergal
(see Figure 121). Cumont told us that in the Roman cult the mystai wore lion masks and
99
carried fake heads in the initiation rituals (Mysteries 152-53). The reader can decide for
himself if the scholars were wrong when they labeled these figures as "dancing" and "the
underworld" respectively (see Figures 109 on page 89 and 120 and 121 below), with no
reference to initiations. Knowing then that the lion-faced Nergal/Nusku (see above) was
the Sun in its destructive aspect, the meaning of the ubiquitous Mithraic leontocephalous
in Roman mithrae—portrayed as a statue with a hole in the mouth where a torch flame
flared out or in relief as shooting flame out of his mouth (see Figure 119)^then becomes
clear.
Fig. 119. Mithraic Leontocephalous Figs. 120. and 121. Nergal, God of the Underworld, Chaldean
Kronos, bas-relief, white marble, from bronze plaque, from G. Maspero, History of Egypt. Chaldea.
Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Syria. Babylonia, and Assyria (London: Grolier, n.d.) 220,
Mithra (New York: Dover, 1956) fig. 221. Gutenberg Project. 7 Sept. 2008 <http://
The symbology used by Roman mystai of the Mysteries of Mithra was nothing
new. The evidence indicates that it descended from the Mysteries of Chaldea, of Egypt,
of Assyria, and of ancient Iran reaching back into the fourth millennium BC and earlier.
100
CHAPTER 7
Plato
This final chapter shall delineate a summary of what has been presented in this
thesis, emphasizing the more salient points and the reasoning behind them. Secondly,
conclusions shall be drawn from all the information presented herein. Lastly, some
expand and broaden the view of the reader towards a mindfulness of the interconnections
among the various ancient nations from the eastern Mediterranean to India and beyond.
After defining what the "Mysteries" in general entailed, the topic of the thesis, the Roman
Cult of Mithra, was presented as a problem confronting scholars who argue over its
origin and meaning. The methodology was presented as a syncretistic analysis of the
various elements, symbology, iconography, and deities that Roman Mithraism entails as
compared to earlier forms from Anatolia, Syria, Mesopotamia, India, and Egypt, and
textual remains of ritual were compared to usages in the context of older cultures, the
Chapter Two presented the basic form of the Roman cult of Mithra from analyses
of extant iconography, epigraphy, and what little evidence of ritual remains. The
contentions of the various modern scholars followed in the next chapter, which can be
Mazdaism from Iran clothed in Greco-Roman attire. Beck found its origin in first-century
Commagene's royal house and even narrowed it down to one man, Balbillus, scorning
Cumont's assertions of Iranian origins. Nabarz admitted Iranian origins for the cult as a
astrological roadmap of the sky in 4000 BC when the precession of the equinoxes (Sun
rising in Aries on the spring equinox, progressively moving through all the signs of the
Zodiac and marking the start of a "New Age" every 2160 years) marked the end of the
Age of Taurus. He pinned the origin of the cult to Tarsus in Asia Minor, claiming it
began after Hipparchus discovered the precession of the equinoxes, being formulated by
Stoic leaders at the Platonic Academy there who believed in astral cosmogony, and
specifically pinpointing one Posidonius (135-50 BC) as the commanding figure. Lastly,
Clauss—opposing Beck, Ulansey, and Cumont—insisted the cult originated in the city of
Rome in the first century. They all gave various and often conflicting meanings to the
symbols in the iconography with the interpretation of the leontocephalous ranging from
102
the Gorgon (by Ulansey) to Zurvan (by Cumont) and of the tauroctony ranging from a
Again, the thesis of this discourse, after digesting all the opposing theories about
Roman Mithraism, was to argue for a new and expanded view, where the cult is not
viewed in isolation, where its symbology is not particular to itself, and where it is shown
to be but another expression of the age old Mysteries, merely manifested in sometimes
altered forms dictated by the culture and types of the times but still veiling the same
occult gnosis. It was argued that the Roman cult of Mithra, in all its elements, is not
unique, not original by any means, not formulated by scheming priests of Commagene or
Rome or Tarsus, but merely another "expression" of the timeless Mysteries whose origins
Cori (two thousand years later), and numerous other sites in Syria and eastern Anatolia. A
head with a snake crawling up the back was found at both the above-named sites, and
10,000 years after Gobekli Tepe, Mithraic cult images of the leontocephalous featured a
snake crawling up the back of his head. Symbols remained consistent in type and form
for at least 12,000 years, and, one might argue, into our time as well, if the time is taken
to examine the symbols in modern temples and cathedrals—the symbols of the gospels of
Chapter Four compared elements of the cult of Mithra with those of the Christian
Church (Latin, Eastern Orthodox Catholic, and Coptic) and found remarkable
103
similarities, arguing that the Christian Mysteries inherited the mantle of the Mysteries of
Mithra, not only in outward forms but in ritual and beliefs as well. Christ became the new
Sun-god, and the Holy Father (Pater, the pope) became the Pontifex Maximus (great
bridge)-—as was the divine Caesar (see Figures 122 and 123) in the pagan religion—his
vicar and mediator between human and divine—the same duty the Pater Patrum (Father
of Fathers) fulfilled in the Mithra cult. The Caesars identified with the Sun-god Sol
Invictus. Over a thousand years earlier Akhenaton (see Figure 124) was the great bridge
and divine Son of the Sun, identifying himself with Aton (RA-Horakhti) (Devi 61, 69).
Fig. 122. Emperor Augustus Fig. 123. Pope John XXIII, Fig. 124. Nefer-Kheperu-RA,
Feb. 2009 <http:// the tiara (triple crown) and sun- of-the-Sun, Only-One-of-the-
Chapter Five went on to illustrate the various syncretistic connections among the
nations of the ancient Near East and the eastern Mediterranean with the Greco-Roman
104
world, arguing the identity of the major gods of the Mysteries as continuous in actuality
and function, changing in form and name only, as ages and cultures passed by. It was
further shown that the elements of the Roman cult descended from ancient Assyria,
Urartu, Syria, and Babylonia, and before that from Sumer, Akkad, and ancient Egypt,
dating to the fourth millennium BC and earlier. Numerous examples of iconography were
used to demonstrate sometimes amazing continuity in the forms through the ages and
nations, even showing Chaldean and Assyrian relief sculptures strangely similar to
Cumont's description of the rituals carried out by the mystai of the Leo (fourth) degree of
Yazilikaya; Achaemenid Behistun and Persepolis; and Commagenian Nimrud Dag, and
the palace reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II at Nimrud, all demonstrated the continuity of the
deities and outward forms of the Mysteries through successive empires and cultures from
the most ancient to Roman times. Epigraphy and texts from Egypt, Sumer, Assyria and
other ancient cultures linked the beliefs of those nations with those of Hatti, Urartu,
Chapter Six was a study of the so-called Lion-Headed God, commonly referred to
Mithraic scholars, after which were presented the arguments for his possible descent from
the Egyptian war-god Maahes and the Sumero-Babylonian war-god Nergal, both
worshipped in lion-faced form, and possibly two names of the same god, as Egyptian and
Sumerian religions were very similar. Egypto-Sumerian contact was proven from the
earliest historical times or before. Textual evidence from ancient scholars and other cults
led to the conclusion that the Lion-Headed God in its primary symbolism is the
destructive Sun.
After considering all the outward forms presented, ranging from 12,000-year-old
Gobekli Tepe to Roman era bestial forms; from fourth-millennium BC goddess Inanna to
Roman era Cybele; from ancient Egyptian Osirian cult ritual to Assyrians in lion masks
and Roman Leones roaring and carrying heads; the conclusion seems clear. These
4000 years and more. The words of the ancient authors themselves were given which
attest to the conflation of the various deities of the Assyrian, Chaldean, and Egyptian
The similarity of expression in ritual forms was shown to span the time from Old
Kingdom Egypt and ancient Mesopotamia to the days of Imperial Rome and the court of
Julian the Apostate, the last pagan emperor. The astrological iconography of ancient
Sumeria (see Figure 125) and that culture's depictions of bull slaying and lions were
apparent precursors of the later Roman astrological symbology and bull slaying of the
tauroctony (see Figure 127). Numerous reliefs of the hero Gilgamesh are found all over
the territory that was once ancient Mesopotamia. His slaying of the Bull of Ishtar is
legendary. In the relief shown in Figure 126 he is assisted by a lion (which some scholars
Fig. 125. Sumerian Astrological Fig. 126. Gilgamesh and Enkidu Fig. 127. Tauroctony with Scorpion
Depiction of Sagittarius with Slaying the Bull of Ishtar, 2nd in the typical place, "The Cosmic
scorpion, lion, dog, eagle, bull, millennium BC, Sumerian, 19 Mysteries of Mithras," ed. David
and snake symbols, from 2nd Feb. 2009 <http://www.garone.net/ Ulansey, 23 Nov. 2008 <http://
13Sumerian/03round.htm>.
The Sun-god concept and his Sun-king, the divinely appointed vicar, was an
ancient Oriental idea descending through the kingdoms of the archaic Near East, into
Anatolia, Syria, and Commagene, and from thence to Rome itself, where the divine
Caesar, son-of-the-Sun, had his throne. Pharaoh was the son of RA or Aton (the Sun) as
was Alexander. Marduk, RA, Ahura Mazda, Utu-Shamash, and all the earlier Sun-gods
fused into Zeus, Jupiter, Helios, Sol Invictus, and Christ, with Apollo as their
psychopompos Sun-god; and, Thoth conflated with Mercury and Mithra. Ancient
Sumerian Inanna was one and the same with the Roman Mater Dea, Anatolian Cybele,
Hittite Ashara, Canaanite Ashtoreth or Astarte, or the Iranian Anahita, mother of Mithra.
They carried the same symbols, had the same functions, and veiled the same Mysteries.
It must be remembered that there are many layers of meaning to all the symbols
and rituals used in the Mysteries (Burkert, Ancient 72). The purpose of the rituals was to
impress upon the emotional nature of the initiate deeper meanings that could only be
comprehended inwardly and psychically, a task which mere spoken or written words
could never accomplish alone (Meyer 213-21; Burkert, Ancient 89). So, it seems that the
Mysteries, manifested in all the civilized nations of the ancient world, were formulated in
the most perfect way to assure that the knowledge survived in perpetuity (Ancient 41-42,
Recommendations
The study of the Mysteries of Mithra has exploded in popularity in the scholarly
world as hundreds of journal articles, web pages, and books have developed around the
topic (Clauss xv). The excitement generated rivals that of a treasure hunt. It seems as if
everyone is digging for something they know is hidden there, but that they just haven't
decoded yet. This discourse pursued the Mithra Cult from a more holistic perspective.
The opinion was presented that no ancient cult should be studied in isolation or
necessarily presumed to have been the creation of any one man or group. Just as immense
strides are being made in the understanding of the formation and development of the
Christian religion in recent years through the wider use of holistic methodologies, so the
study of the Mystery cults might benefit from the same inclusive approach.
The work of venerated scholars such as Walter Burkert and Jean-Pierre Vernant
has helped reopen the discussion about the origin of Western culture and beliefs. The
historiographer, Robert Williams, wrote that "History involves revision, not denial, of
statements of fact about the past, based on new facts or new interpretations of old facts,
not on present politics" (45). To keep an open mind, when the subject of religion is
involved (and that includes the cults) and to suppress preconceived ideas, whether held
preconceived notions like anyone else, although it may be argued these are more
So, in such a study as the Mysteries of Mithra, it behooves the researcher to keep
a totally open mind and not automatically reject what might seem, at first glance, as
unlikely or even incredulous. In the advancing study of Church history cutting edge
scholarship has presented numerous findings, which, in an earlier decade, might have
been thought preposterous. The Mysteries were initiatic and experiential, and scholars
who truly want to delve deeper must take this to heart (Burkert, Ancient 114).
The theories of David Ulansey have opened up wide speculation and debate on
the possible astrological meanings in the tauroctony. I believe this bears further study,
especially as concerns the possible meaning of Mithra turning the wheel of the zodiac
(see Figure 49). Scholars have theorized that this symbolizes a progression of the
zodiacal ages (from the age of Taurus to the Age of Aries, and so forth) connected with
symbology concerning later ages? And, how does the lion-headed god, entwined by a
serpent, figure in? Chapter Seven of this discourse concluded that the leontocephalous
was (in its primary aspect) the destructive Sun (see Figure 128).
109
Christ has been pictured in many of his aspects, such as the gentle good shepherd
or instructive rabbi. In Figure 129, from America's largest church, the Basilica of the
his apocalyptic aspect, as the returning King of Kings and final Judge who meets out
justice (recall the primary role of Mithra and of Shamash as dispenser of justice). To one
from a culture foreign to Christianity, the image would most likely appear to be some
fierce Sun-god. Much remains to be discovered about the foundations of Christianity and
In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (associated with the Eleusinian mysteries) the
goddess Demeter remarked that "Humans are short-sighted, stupid, ignorant of the share
of good or evil which is coming to them" (qtd. in Meyer 26). Can we disagree with a
Figs. 128. and 129. The Destructive Sun, with erupting solar flares (compare to Fig. 119), 29 May 2009
Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C., 3 million tile, 3600 sq. foot mosaic, 20 May 2005, photostream
Albright, W. F. "The Name and Nature of the Sumerian God Uttu." Journal of the
Allegro, John. Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls Revealed. New York: Gramercy, 1964.
Amenhotep IV, Son of the Sun. Mural. "Development of the Cult of Aton under
tut08.htm>.
religions/iranian/Anahita.htm>.
www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk>.
featurestories/bull.htm>.
Apollo Riding a Winged Tripod. Red Ware Hydria. Classical. Museo Gregoriano
01ympios/Apollo/html>.
Arjomand, Said Amir, "Artaxerxes, Ardasir, and Bahman." Journal of the American
www.stzaiacathedral.org.au/popup_addai.htm>.
Averbeck, Richard E. "Myth, Ritual, and Order in 'Enki and the World Order'." Journal
Baird, Forest E., and Walter Kaufmann. Ancient Philosophy. Upper Saddle River, New
Baiter, Michael. "Prehistoric Cattle Go Wild." Science Now 23 Nov. 2005: 1-2.
Beck, Roger. "Iranian Religions: Mithraism: The Cult of Mithra as It Developed in the
West, Its Origins, Its Features, and Its Origins with Mithraism in Iran." CAIS:
C AIS/Religions/iranian/Mithraism>.
Beckman, Gary. "The Religion of the Hittites." Biblical Archaeologist 52 (1989): 98-108.
Beyond the Heavens. Painting. Mithraism. Ed. David Ulansey. 17 Dec. 2008 <http://
www.well.com/davidu/mithras.html>.
113
Binst, Oliver, ed. The Levant: History and Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Nahen Osten.
(1992): 265-67.
Blanchard, John. Scottish Rite Masonry. Vol. 2. Bensenville, Illinois: Lushena, 2001.
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, Isis Unveiled: A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient
and Modern Science and Theology. Vol. 2. Pasadena: Theosophical UP, 1976.
—. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy. Vol. 2
Boghaz-keui Chief God and Goddess. Sculpture. The Syrian Goddess in History and Art.
Bougereau, William-Adolphe.The Virgin and Angels. 1900. Petit Palais Musee des
Boyce, Mary. "On Mithra's Part in Zoroastrianism." Bulletin of the School of Oriental
Brace, C. Loring, et al. "The Questionable Contribution of the Neolithic and Bronze Age
Brown, Peter. "The Diffusion of Manichaeism in the Roman Empire." Journal of Roman
Byrd, Brian. "Reassessing the Emergence of Village Life in the Near East." Journal of
Carter, Martha L. "An Indo-Iranian Silver Rhyton in the Cleveland Museum." Artibus
10 (1930): 55-73.
<http://www.Ganglieri.nl/articles>.
ECBYZl.htm>.
photos/bootbearwdc/14872164>.
Christ Pantocrator in the Dome of the Cathedral of Sainte Sophie in Kiev. Photograph.
dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ejournal/aejt_4/battaglia.htm>.
115
Christ Pantocrator in the Dome of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio. Photograph. 24 Aug.
2009 <http://www.flickr.com/photos/Xerones/97521742>.
Christ Pantocrator Hovering in Disk Held by Winged Angels. Photograph. The Vatican
www. saintpetersbasilica.org>.
visit/byzantine.php>.
Christ in Roman Imperial Robes. Illustration. Catholic Tradition. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://
www.catholictradition.org/christ>.
www.catholictradition.org/christ>.
Clauss, Manfred. The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries. New York:
Routledge, 2001.
(2003): 96-102.
www.atheists.org>.
116
Cooper, Jerrold S. "Mesopotamian Historical Consciousness and the Production of
222>.
<http://www.nemrud.nl.img/west6_mithri.jpgy>.
Cumont, Franz. The Mysteries of Mithra. Trans. Thomas J. McCormack. New York:
Dover, 1956.
—. "St. George and Mithra 'The Cattle Thief." Journal of Roman Studies 27 (1937):
63-71.
Curry, Andrew. "The World's First Temple?" Smithsonian Nov. 2008: 54-60.
Cut But Unused Megalith, Baalbek, Lebanon. Photograph. 6 Feb. 2009 <http://
www.biblemysteries.com/images/baalbek.gif>.
Cybele and Attis. Sculpture. Museo Archaeologico, Venezia, Italia. Flickr. 28 Dec. 2008
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerxespersepolis/797589843>.
solarflare .j pg>.
117
Devi, Savitri. Son of the Sun. San Jose, California: Supreme Grand Lodge of
Dezso, Tamas, and John Curtis. "Assyrian Iron Helmets from Nimrud Now in the British
(1979): 216-21.
ClWebPage.htm>.
Donbaz, Veysel. "An Old Assyrian Treaty from Kultepe." Journal of Cuneiform Studies
57 (2005): 63-68.
Doresse, Jean. The Secret Book of the Egyptian Gnostics: An Introduction to the Gnostic
www.romanemperors.com/augustus.htm>.
Feldman, Marian H. "Assur Tomb 45 and the Birth of the Assyrian Empire." Bulletin of
Ritual," Paleolithic Art Magazine: Europa. Oct. (2001). 22 May 2009 <http://
www.paleolithicartmagazine.org/pagina65html.html>.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu Slaving the Bull of Ishtar. Cylinder Seal. 19 Feb. 2009 <http://
www.garone.net/tony/random.html>.
Gilgamesh and the Bull. Sculpture, c.2250-1900 BC. Musee Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire,
history-archaeology/gbekli-tepe.html>.
Goddess Anahita and Sun-God Mithra. Relief Sculpture. AD 379-383. 24 July 2008
<http://www.piney.com/sun-lion.gif>.
Goddess Durga. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio. Artibus Asiae 41 (1979)
pi, 1. la, b.
Goddess Inanna with Her Lion. Relief Sculpture. Sumerian. Sumerian Gods, ed. Ellie
claims.htm>.
singleObject.cfm?ObjectId=22472>.
Gordon, Richard, and Christopher Beall, Rev. of Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and
Gray, Louis H. "Recent Studies on the Iranian Religions." Harvard Theological Review
15 (1922): 87-95.
Griffiths, J. Gwyn. "Atlantis and Egypt." Historia: Zeitschrift fur Alte Geschichte 34
(1985): 3-28.
153-59.
Gunter, Ann C. "Artists and Ancient Near Eastern Art". Investigating Artistic
Society, 1976.
Hartner, Willy. "The Earliest History of the Constellations in the Near East and the Motif
Heimpel, Wolfgang. "The Sun at Night and the Doors of Heaven in Babylonian Texts."
Helios in His Chariot. 435 BC. British Museum, London. Theoi. 11 Feb. 2009 <http://
Hermes. 5th Century BC. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Theoi. 17 Feb. 2009 <http://
www.theoi.com/olympios/Hermes.html>.
mythology/0600/apollo.htm>.
www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Art/Moschoforos.htm>.
121
Herodotus. Histories. Trans. George Rawlinson. Ed. E. H. Blakeney. Vol. 2. London:
Dent, 1964.
Hoey, Allen S. "Official Policy towards Oriental Cults in the Roman Army."
(1939): 456-81.
Holy Bible: Confraternity-Douav Version. Ed. Catholic Scholars. New York: Catholic
Hopkins, Clark. The Discovery of Dura-Europos. Ed. Bernard Goldman. New Haven:
lamblichus. On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians. Trans. Thomas
commons.wikipedia.Org/wiki/File:Taq-e_Bostan>.
Jackson, A. V. Williams. Zoroaster: The Prophet of Ancient Iran. 1898. New York:
—. "On the Date of Zoroaster." Journal of the American Oriental Society 17 (1896):
1-22.
Jastrow, Morris. "Nebopolassar and the Temple to the Sun-God at Sippar." American
Julio Claudian Princeps. Bronze Imago Clipeata. Royal-Athena Galleries, New York.
www.phoenixmasonry.org>.
Knoche, Grace F. The Mystery Schools. 1940. Pasadena: Theosophical UP, 1999.
Kramer, Samuel Noah. History Begins at Sumer: Thirty-Nine Firsts in Recorded History.
Kriwaczek, Paul. In Search of Zarathustra: The First Prophet and the Ideas that Changed
Lake, Marilyn. "The White Man under Siege: New Histories of Race in the Nineteenth
(2004): 41-62.
(1967): 126-28.
—. "Snakes and Gods in Ancient Syria and Anatolia." Bulletin of the School of Oriental
Langdon, S. "The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt and the Similarities in Their
Leadbeater, C.W. Freemasonry and Its Ancient Mystic Rites. 1926. New York:
Gramercy, 1998.
Lion-Man. Sculpture. 30,000 BC. Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany. 22 May 2009 <http://
www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Lion_man>.
start.html>.
and Assyria. Project Gutenberg. Ed. Sami Sieronoja. 5 Sept. 2005. 8 Jan 2009
<http://www.gutenberg.org.files/l 6653/16653-h>.
MacMullen, Ramsay. Paganism in the Roman Empire. New Haven: Yale UP, 1981.
Marionite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Boutres Sfeir. Photograph. 14 Feb. 2009 <http://
www.kobayat.com/maronites.htm>.
reginamundi77>.
Maspero, G. History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria. Babylonia, and Assyria. Ed. A. H. Cayce.
v3b.htm>.
124
Merrillees, Robert S. "Political Conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late
Meyer, Marvin. Ed. The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Sacred Texts. Philadelphia:
U of Pennsylvania?, 1987.
Millar, F. The Roman Near East: 31 BC-AD 337. Boston: Harvard UP, 1993.
Millard, A. R. and P. Bordreuil. "A Statue from Syria with Assyrian and Aramaic
122-131.
Mithra with Star Cape. Mural. "The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithra." Mithraism. Ed. David
The Roman Military Research Society. 7 Jan. 2009. 9 Feb. 2009 <http://
www.romanarmy.net/mithras.html>.
Mithraeum of the Seven Spheres. Ostia Antica (Rome). Photographs. Vatican Museum,
Mithraism: The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithra. Ed. David Ulansey. 9 Feb. 2009 <http://
www.well.com/~davidu/mithras.html>.
Mithras/Helios Relief. Sculpture. Gods. Heroes, and Myths. 30 Aug. 2008 <http://
www.gods-heroes-myth.com/godpages/helios.html>.
Moorey, P.R.S. "A Bronze 'Pazazu' Statuette from Egypt."Iraq 27 (1965): 33-41.
Moschophoros, The Calf Bearer. 570 BC. Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece.
125
Mother Goddess Figure Enthroned. Sculpture. Museum of Anatolian Civilizations,
www.bibliotecapleyades.net/arqueologia/esp_baalbek_2.htm>.
Mylonas, George. "Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries." Classical Journal 43 (1947):
130-46.
Na'anam, Nadav. "The Trowel vs. the Text: How the Amarna Letters Challenge
Nabarz, Payam. The Mysteries of Mithras: The Pagan Belief that Shaped the Christian
www.livius.org.a/l/mesopotamia/nabonidus.jpg>.
"Near East in 1450 BC." Map. Ian Mladjov's Resources. University of Michigan. 7 Feb.
kemit/akhenatenl .htm>.
Neils, Jenifer. "Reconfiguring the Gods on the Parthenon Frieze." Art Bulletin 81 (1999):
6-20.
www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/rurkeynevali.html>.
126
Niedorezo, Stefan. Our Lady of the Sign: Ark of the Covenant. Sculpture. St. Stanislaus
www.st.stansk.com>.
Nock, Arthur Darby. "The Genius of Mithraism." Journal of Roman Studies 27 (1937):
108-13.
claims.htm>.
tofmo.org/papacy/images/John23itiara.jpg>.
pope.shtml>.
Pope John Paul II Raising Host for Adoration. Photograph. Flickr. 12 Feb. 2009 <http://
ww.flickr.com/photos/10442151 @N00/16868948>.
pope>.
Porada, Edith. "Why Cylinder Seals? Engraved Cylindrical Seal Stones of the Ancient
Near East, Fourth to First Millennium BC." Art Bulletin 75 (1993): 563-82.
Potter, David. Emperors of Rome: The Story of Imperial Rome from Julius Caesar to the
2 (1912): 53-64.
Adamant, 2005.
Rose Croix Masons in Red and White Ritual Garb. Photographs by R. Reed. 23 Aug.
2009 <http://www.flickr.eom/photos/rreed3/2168181816/in/photostream>.
Royal Investiture of Ardashir II. Sculpture. Wikepedia Commons. 21 Feb. 2009 <http://
commons.wikepedia.org/ wiki/File:Taq-e_Bostan>.
ois2_2007.pdf>.
Russell, James R. "On Mysticism and Esotericism among the Zoroastrians." Iranian
Sarton, George, and Francis J. Carmody. Rev. of'The Exact Sciences in Antiquity," by
19 (1899): 265-72.
Scham, Sandra. "The World's First Temple: Turkey's 12,000-Year-Old Stone Circles
22-27.
www.romanarmy.net/mithras.html>.
of the Aegean World at the Dawn of the Holocene Period (1 l-9kyr)." Quaternary
Sekhmet, Egyptian War Goddess. Sculpture. Egyptian Tour. Ed. Hank Wesselman.
Serith, Ceisiwr. "What is Mithraism?" Ceisiwr Serith's Homepage. 23 July 2008. <http://
www.ceisiwrserith.com/mith/whatismith.htm>.
Shipman, Pat. "At the Trowel's Edge." Rev. of Goddess and the Bull, Catalhoyuk: An
Smith, Morton. "The Common Theology of the Ancient Near East." Journal of Biblical
Sol Invictus>.
129
Solar Lion Door Knocker. Symbolic Adornment. 7 Feb. 2009 <http://www.dcpages.com/
gallery>.
Strong, Herbert A., trans. De Pea Syria. By Lucian. John Garstang, ed. London:
www.catshaman.com/13 Sumerian/03round.htm>.
Sumerian Gods and Astral Symbols. Cylinder Seal. Sumerian Gods. Ed. Ellie Crystal.
Sumerian Inanna. Relief Sculpture. Sumerian Gods. Ed. Ellie Crystal. 12 Nov. 2008
<http://www.crystalinks.com/sumergods.html>.
Sun-God Ahura Mazda inside a Winged-Disk. Sculpture. Persia. 18 Dec. 2008 <http://
www.livius.org.au-az/avesta/avesta.html>.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assur_(god)>.
religion.E.htm>.
commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taq-e_Bostan>.
Tauroctony with Scorpion. Relief Sculpture. "The Cosmic Mysteries of Mithras." Ed.
Taylor, Thomas. The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries. 1791. Wizards Bookshelf: San
Diego, 1997.
Temple of the Soul. Image. Freemason Information. Ed. Greg Stewart. 30 April 2008
<http://www.freemasoninformation.com>.
The Papacy and the World. Painting. Google Images. 22 Feb. 2008. 29 Jan. 2009 <http://
images.google.com>.
Thieme, Paul. "The 'Aryan' Gods of the Mitanni Treaties." Journal of the American
Tighe, William J. "The Shadow of Nestorius." Review of The Church of the East: An
21 (2008): 27-32.
magies/creatures/sirenes.htm/sirenes/php>.
Two Assyrian Gods, One Lion-Headed. Relief Sculpture. Myths of Babylonia and
2008 <http://www.gutenberg.0rg/f1les/l6653/16653-h/l6653-h.htm>.
Ulansey, David. The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the
Urartian Bronze Relief. Helmet Fragment. 824-810 BC. 22 Feb. 2009 <http://
www.rubens.anu.edu.au/raid4/europe.0602/germany/
karlsruhe/badische_landesmuseum/archaeology/urartu>.
Urartian Helmet with Tree of Life. Relief in Bronze. 760-743 BC. Hermitage Museum,
urartu/html>.
Urartu-sphinx.jpg>.
(1991): 150-80.
Utu-Shamash in His Throne Room. Relief Sculpture. British Museum, London. 7 Dec.
2008. <http://www.graal.co.uk/lordoftherings.html>.
Utu/Shamash the Sun-God of Sumeria. Sculpture. Flickr Photos. 17 Feb. 2009 <http://
www.flickr.com/photos/89756796@N00/214768876>.
Van de Mieroop, Marc. Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History. New York:
Routledge, 1999.
Vermassen, Maarten. Mithras: The Secret God. New York: Barnes and Nobel, 1963.
Vernant, Jean Pierre. The Greeks. Trans. Charles Lambert and Teresa Lavender Fagan.
—. The Origins of Greek Thought. Ithaca, New York: Cornell UP, 1982.
Waldmann, Nahum M. "A Note on Ezekiel 1:18." Journal of Biblical Literature 103
(1984): 614-18.
Ward, William Hayes. "The Hittite Gods in Hittite Art." American Journal of
Weniger, Bemhard, et al. "Climate Forcing Due to the 8200 cal yr BP Event Observed
66 (2006): 401-20.
Williams, Robert C. The Historian's Toolbox: A Student's Guide to the Theory and Craft
Winlow, Heather. "Mapping Moral Geographies: W.Z. Ripley's Races of Europe and the
119-41.
Winston, David. "The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha, and Qumran: A
Wolkstein, Diane, and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her
Young, Gorman Douglas. "Utu and Justice: A New Sumerian Proverb." Journal of
apocrypha6.html>.